Smoke a Lot of Big Monkey Butt*

We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011, Lynne Ramsay)

2011-12-23T16:30:00.001-05:00

Of all the complaints I’ve read about We Need to Talk About Kevin, Ramsay’s first film in nearly a decade, the most interesting to me is the idea that the film doesn’t work because Kevin (played by Ezra Miller as a teenager) is a monster more or less from the time the doctor cut his umbilical cord. And you know what? Those folks aren’t wrong- a film in which a mother looks back at the fleeting, subtle signs that her kid is going to end up shooting up his school does (on paper, anyway) sound more compelling than one in which a child reveals his evil from the get-go and seems inevitably careening toward cataclysmic violence.

Yet I don’t think that Ramsay wants to examine the genesis of a killer, so much as she wants to explore how inadequate the vast majority of us are when confronted with unfiltered evil. As I’ve come to understand in the last three-odd years, dealing with a child can be rough going even under the best of circumstances, since parenting challenges tend to arise all too often when you’ve got plenty of other things on your plate. What makes it even harder for Eva (Tilda Swinton) is that Kevin isn’t your garden variety tiny terror who has fits and rages- he’s clever and calculating even from a young age, and all of his dealings with his mother seem driven by a desire to antagonize her, even while he puts on a friendly face for his father and the rest of the world.

Making matters worse is the fact that Eva is hardly an ideal candidate for motherhood. Swinton is pretty amazing here, conveying the frustrations of a woman whose parenting skills are limited, and whose attempts to raise her son are constantly (and frustratingly) thwarted by his unwillingness to cooperate. After all, how would you feel if you had a child who not only continued to wear a diaper well into his grade-school years, but also deliberately had an “accident” right in front of you, out of pure spite? Making it even worse is that when Eva reacts to him in a way that accidentally leads to her breaking Kevin’s arm, he now has something specific with which to manipulate his mother, thereby making her feel even more inadequate.

Which brings me back to my original idea of how ill-equipped people are to handle unstoppably evil people, no matter what their age. Sure, truckloads of books have been written on children who are mentally ill or otherwise troubled, but Kevin is clearly an outlier, and there’s no way to prepare someone to deal with his actions, much less his deeper nature. In essence, Kevin functions like a funhouse mirror to Eva, reflecting her own parenting issues and anxieties back at her, only exaggerated to an abject degree.

It’s because Eva was so powerless to do anything to stop her son that the scenes in the aftermath of the shooting are so effective. The incident has made her a social pariah, as she has her property vandalized, finds herself shunned in public, and is even assaulted by a member of the community. In a more conventional take on this subject matter, Eva would look back at her son’s life and try to figure out what she did wrong, but such was Kevin’s nature that practically everything she could have done would have ended in failure. The fact that she takes the punishment underlines not only the guilt she feels about her son’s actions, but also her resignation. After all, if you had a child like Kevin, what, realistically, could you have done to stop him?

This idea that we don’t have the amount of control over the child’s fate as we’d like to think we do is a pretty despairing view of parenting, and while Kevin is obviously an extreme case, there’s an element of this idea in every parent-child relationship. What parent hasn’t at some point had to face the fact that he or she is ill-equipped to deal with his child’s unique challenges? I’m reminded of an incident I witnessed a few years back in an airport, in which a preteen boy yelled at and insulted his parents at great length. At the time I had trouble with the fact that his parents didn’t do anything to take him aside and remove him from the crowded waiting area, but what has stuck with me most since then was the defeated looks on their faces as they tried impotently to deal with him. Granted, this child was clearly mentally ill rather than flat-out monstrous, but their reaction (or lack thereof) felt to me a lot like Eva’s feelings about her son.

If We Need to Talk About Kevin is full of troubling ideas, it’s also an highly skilled piece of filmmaking. The first half-hour of the film is particularly impressive, with Ramsay forgoing old-school exposition and instead sets up the film expressionistically, bouncing back and forth in Eva’s life in a way that establishes the film’s recurring stylistic motifs. And even after the film settles down into its story, Ramsay never goes overboard with plot, allowing the images and action to drive the action. For instance, consider how she portrays the shooting- not in exhaustive detail, but simply by showing Kevin putting locks on the doors, followed by a series of shots that may or may not be Eva’s image of how it might have happened. Even critics who don’t fully support Kevin agree that Ramsay is a major talent, and that it would be a shame if she took another decade to finish her next film.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 (2011, Bill Condon)

2011-11-21T18:37:00.001-05:00

Ever since the first Twilight installment three years ago, I’ve complained that Kristen Stewart isn’t much of an actor, but now I don’t think the trouble here. Oh sure, she’s still pretty un-good, but then teen melodramas- and supernatural trappings aside, that’s what these movies are- have long been full of subpar performers. No, the trouble is that she’s the wrong kind of bad actor for this movie. A character arc like this requires someone capable of big emotions, as the story takes her from wedding-eve jitters to honeymoon passions to pregnancy-gone-bad illness. If your leading lady can’t manage to give a deeply felt performance, the next best thing is to get someone who can hit the high notes with panache and charisma. Unfortunately, Stewart lacks both of these traits, instead relying on over-rehearsed fussiness that’s a hallmark of actors who aim to be serious without necessarily being any good.

What’s more, her face lacks the necessary expressiveness to sell this story, in particular Bella’s chooses to sacrifice herself so that her baby can live. In the book, Stephenie Meyer was able to convey Bella’s decision-making primarily having her narrate the story, but Condon and screenwriter forego first-person narration here, relying entirely on Stewart to put it across, and she fails the test. Stewart’s performance lacks any sign of interior monologue, so when she says she’ll let her vampire baby kill her so that it may live, it feels less like a conscious choice than obligation dictated by the original novel. And that’s a violation of one of the cardinal rules of adaptation- it’s not enough to repeat the original plot, unless you can make the story work in the new medium as well. If you need a book to explain the movie, then the filmmakers have dropped the ball.

That said, I didn’t hate Breaking Dawn Part 1 as much as some people out there. Granted, the much-ballyhooed hiring of Oscar-winner Bill Condon to direct didn’t pay off as it should have, since the movie’s style is as half-assed as ever. Has there ever been a franchise this lucrative that’s felt this cut-rate? Still, I have to admit that the story is going in some strange and potentially fascinating directions, provided Condon handles Part 2 as well as the climactic childbirth scene. And I do like some of the supporting performances- not just those by legitimately solid actors like Michael Sheen (a finely-cured ham) and the franchise’s stealth hero Billy Burke, but also from youngsters like Jackson Rathbone and Ashley Greene, who are stylish enough that they show up Kristen Stewart whenever they’re onscreen. Heck, I even like Taylor Lautner, who may not be a great actor but who is at least right for this movie. At least when he gets angry, you believe it.

Rating: 4 out of 10.

Happy Feet Two (2011, George Miller)

2011-11-21T18:36:00.000-05:00

2006’s Happy Feet wasn’t a great movie by any means, but for all its cute dancing penguins what lingers in the memory is what an eccentric vision Miller placed on screen, especially by family-movie standards. Unfortunately, genuine eccentricity in cinema is hard to pull off in a way that’s charming rather than annoyingly precious, and doubly so when a filmmaker must re-create his original formula. The biggest problem with Happy Feet is how what was once endearingly off-kilter now feels focus-grouped to death. Oh sure, all the hallmarks of the original- cute penguins singing and dancing along with popular songs, impressive computer animation, zany supporting characters- are there, but now it feels like Miller and company said, “hey, that was fun the first time, so why not double it up in the sequel?” So (to cite the most egregious example) instead of just getting Robin Williams to mince around in two roles- which, I mean, ugh- you’ve also got Hank Azaria with a Swedish-chef accent and Brad Pitt and Matt Damon as a pair of krill who oh-so-wackily venture off on their own. Couple that with a story that lopes along (remember Jason Mewes’ description of Lord of the Rings in Clerks II? That’s what this feels like), and Happy Feet Two ends up being perhaps the slowest 90-odd minutes I’ve spent in a theatre all year. Until it rallies somewhat in the final real with a production number set to “Under Pressure,” there’s nothing in this movie that provides any evidence that anybody involved actually cared about making this unique and special. It’s clear that Warner Brothers knew what they had on their hands, what with opening it opposite the new Twilight movie and all.

Rating: 3 out of 10.

Cold Weather (2010, Aaron Katz)

2011-10-04T17:35:00.001-04:00

Cold Weather is a treasure because it’s not ashamed to be modest of scale. To the contrary, writer/director/editor Aaron Katz relishes in the very smallness of his movie, and the movie is all the more pleasurable for it. Everything about the movie feels modest, beginning with the ambitions of its protagonist Doug (Cris Lankenau), a twentysomething who’s recently dropped out of college but might, y’know, go back, like, eventually. For now, he’s content to shack up with his slightly more career-minded big sister Gail (Trieste Kelly Dunn), work nights at the local ice factory, and hang out when he’s off the clock.

Of course, a plot eventually finds its way into the mix, but to Katz’s credit he never lets it get out of hand with the rest of the movie. Doug, who had studied forensic science before dropping out, gets caught up in some intrigue involving an ex-girlfriend, and suddenly finds it necessary to call on some of his modest expertise. I won’t go into details about the mystery element of the story here, so that any interested readers might enjoy it themselves. But I appreciated that Katz never let the mystery stuff overwhelm everything else- not only is it exactly the sort of small-scale intrigue that of which a guy like Doug might find himself in the center, but it also never loses sight of the characters and their unique personalities. Lankenau is a real find here, creating a sort of slacker-gumshoe who’s the most interesting shamus to waltz down the pipe since Bill Pullman’s sadly forgotten Darryl Zero. I loved a wonderful little bit in which Doug, an avowed Sherlock Holmes fan, goes shopping for a pipe to “help him think” (just like his hero), only to discover that the pipes worthy of Holmes are priced well out of his budget, and he has to make due with a plainer, more workaday model, which get the job done but lacks the same flair.

Strangely enough, it’s because Katz concentrates on his characters- not just Doug, but also Gail and even his coworker turned sidekick Carlos (Raul Castillo)- that the mystery manages to generate real suspense. Too many mystery movies depend on obvious techniques of setup-and-payoff that it’s refreshing to see a filmmaker who is able to generate suspense by forcing his protagonist to think his way of trouble. Katz places us squarely with Doug from the outset, so that when he finds himself in a jam, it scarcely matters that the stakes are actually fairly low- because Doug and his cohorts take it seriously, so do we.

The ending in Cold Weather comes as a surprise. That’s not to say there’s a twist ending- far from it, really- but I was sort of taken aback that Katz decided to wrap up his story before the mystery had seemingly been resolved. Most movies of this kind would have found Doug bailing out his ex, the culprits brought to justice, and everything getting back to normal, but the final scene shows that Katz wasn’t making a mystery involving Doug and his friends, but Doug and his friends stumbling into, through, and out of a mystery. Because of this, the central concern is one of character and how the people in the film change, rather than simply being cogs in a plot machine, and this makes Cold Weather one of the most pleasurable films of the year so far.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

Cars 2 (2011, John Lasseter)

2011-06-24T22:54:00.002-04:00

Since its release in 2006, the original Cars has gotten a rep as being one of Pixar’s least successful releases- from a creative standpoint anyway, since Pixar and corporate overlord Disney have made enough money from grosses, DVD sales, and particularly merchandising to power the economies of countless small countries. But while sheer economics demanded a sequel, I had some hope that it wouldn’t just be a cash-in and excuse to manufacture tons of Lightning McQueen bric-a-brac. So give Lasseter some credit for building the sequel’s story not around McQueen but instead around the story’s least photogenic character, the aw-shucks tow truck Mater. After all, though Mater was one of the original’s more memorable characters, he’s not a high-performance machine, and as such doesn’t lend himself to having his miniature doppelgangers zoomed around on a playroom floor.

However, I’m sad to say that the new story focus doesn’t really work. In the original film, Mater was good for some laughs, especially in the unlikely ways he cozied up to new arrival and future best friend Lightning. Unfortunately, his increased screen time reveals that Mater isn’t a very deep character, with little more to him than backwoods befuddlement and an encyclopedic knowledge of cars that comes from a lifetime working on them, which isn’t quite enough to sustain a feature-length story. What’s more, Larry the Cable Guy’s performance, which was a nice surprise in the first film, quickly becomes overbearing here, especially in scenes that require him to be wacky in the midst of deadly serious business. And considering the film’s story drops Mater into an espionage plot (Nathan Rabin of the AV Club smartly references the 1997 Bill Murray vehicle The Man Who Knew Too Little), there are too many of these scenes to overlook.

That said, there’s still enough good stuff to recommend the movie. While the first film relied too much on small-town charm (its “slow down and appreciate the little things” theme was handled better, and more succinctly, in the Andy Griffith Show episode “The Sermon For Today”), the tone here is zippier and more action-oriented, as befitting the movie’s spy-movie influences. And as with every new Pixar release, the studio’s animation wizards continue to push the envelope visually, especially in the detail and texture of the settings- several shots in the film, especially in London, could be mistaken for actual footage if not for Mater’s presence in them. And to be fair, Mater does have some good moments, especially those involving some added features he gets to work undercover. All in all, it’s a little better than the original- no great shakes to be sure, and another of Pixar’s lesser efforts, but with a real sense of fun that makes it worth seeing.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (2011, Rob Marshall)

2011-05-20T00:01:00.000-04:00

I’m almost tempted not to bother writing a review for this, seeing as how the Pirates franchise has practically come to defined the expression “critic-proof.” Morever, it scarcely matters whether the audience likes these movies anymore, considering that the promise of Johnny Depp doing his Captain Jack thing puts asses in seats no matter how much the people attach to those asses complain about the movies after the fact. So let’s bring the discussion to Depp himself, whose creative well seems to be running dry, at least as far as the character is concerned. Oh sure, he does his usual thing, pulling faces, stumbling and slurring his way through the dialogue, but morphing into a man of action when backed into a corner. While his performance in the first (and best) Pirates was a subversive gem, practically de-pantsing the big-budget blockbuster that surrounded him, the sequels didn’t quite know what to do with him anymore. So big a hit was the first Pirates that the filmmakers became convinced that audiences legitimately cared about the adventures of Will and Elizabeth and the trade wars in which they had become ensnared, when in actuality they just wanted more Captain Jack. Unlike previous entries, On Stranger Tides makes Captain Jack the sole protagonist, and unfortunately Depp’s pirate shtick has become so well-worn that it’s no fun anymore.

It doesn’t help that, despite the presence of new director Marshall, Tides is just as bloated and enamored of eye candy as the last two Verbinski films. No longer is the Pirates team interested in making a silly, audience-pleasing swashbuckler- now they feel the need to churn out spectacles, separating opening-weekend crowds from $100 million or so of their money on opening weekend on their way to impressing shoppers with their eye-popping images on the latest HDTVs and Blu-Ray players on display at Best Buy. Because of this, Captain Jack more often than not feels out of place in his own movie. This wouldn’t be so damaging if the character still felt fresh- Depp’s a charismatic enough performer that when he brings his A game, he can win over the audience no matter how bad the movie. But because the movie as a whole is so second-rate, Depp is mostly a distraction, slowing down the action (which is mostly forgettable) so he can do his thing.

This isn’t to say that On Stranger Tides is without its pleasures. After all, Penelope Cruz looks mighty foxy in her pirate outfits. But the only performer who really conveys joy of performance is Geoffrey Rush, as the wizened old sea dog Barbossa. True, he hams it up just as much as Depp- even more, perhaps- but while Depp is mostly riffing by this point, Rush grounds his performance in the reality of this world, acting as slimy and gruff as the story will allow, and no more. He’s so good in this that I actually began to imagine a Pirates movie about Barbossa without Captain Jack getting in the way. Geoffrey Rush with a peg leg might not sell as many tickets as Johnny Depp in eyeliner, but the resulting movie would probably be a lot more fun.

Rating: 4 out of 10.

Ratings for 2011 releases

2011-05-11T22:36:00.035-04:00

Here’s a list of Muriel-eligible releases I’ve seen so far in 2011. If it seems like I’m lenient with my ratings, reflect that my time is at a premium and I try to hand-pick the movies I really want to see while waiting to watch the ones about which I’m less enthusiastic until they hit Netflix. That is, of course, unless it’s something the Offspring wants to see, in which case they generally take precedence over anything else, for good (Rango) or ill (The Green Hornet).

Anyway, the ratings:

10 ratings
The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick)

9 ratings
Certified Copy (Abbas Kiarostami)
Terri (Azazel Jacobs)
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Tomas Alfredson)
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul)

8 ratings
Cold Weather (Aaron Katz)
Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn)
Le Havre (Aki Kaurismäki)
Hugo (Martin Scorsese)
Meek’s Cutoff (Kelly Reichardt)
Mission: Impossible- Ghost Protocol (Brad Bird)
Moneyball (Bennett Miller)
Mysteries of Lisbon (Raul Ruiz)
Rango (Gore Verbinski)
Tabloid (Errol Morris)
Take Shelter (Jeff Nichols)
We Need to Talk About Kevin (Lynne Ramsay)

7 ratings
13 Assassins (Takashi Miike)
The Arbor (Clio Barnard)
Attack the Block (Joe Cornish)
Beginners (Mike Mills)
City of Life and Death (Lu Chuan)
Contagion (Steven Soderbergh)
Heartbeats (Xavier Dolan)
The Interrupters (Steve James)
Martha Marcy May Marlene (Sean Durkin)
Melancholia (Lars Von Trier)
The Myth of the American Sleepover (David Robert Mitchell)
Of Gods and Men (Xavier Beauvois)
Potiche (Francois Ozon)
Project Nim (James Marsh)
Le quattro volte (Michelangelo Frammartino)
Rapt (Lucas Belvaux)
Silent Souls (Aleksei Fedorchenko)
Submarine (Richard Ayoade)
The Time That Remains (Elia Suleiman)
Tuesday, After Christmas (Radu Muntean)
Weekend (Andrew Haigh)

6 ratings
50/50 (Jonathan Levine)
The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn (Steven Spielberg)
Beats, Rhymes & Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest (Michael Rapaport)
A Better Life (Chris Weitz)
Captain America: The First Avenger (Joe Johnston)
Cars 2 (John Lasseter)
Cave of Forgotten Dreams (Werner Herzog)
The Debt (John Madden)
The Descendants (Alexander Payne)
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (David Fincher)
The Guard (John Michael McDonagh)
Hanna (Joe Wright)
Incendies (Denis Villeneuve)
Leap Year (Michael Rowe)
Margin Call (J.C. Chandor)
Midnight in Paris (Woody Allen)
Nostalgia for the Light (Patricio Guzmán)
Putty Hill (Matt Porterfield)
Road to Nowhere (Monte Hellman)
Senna (Asif Kapadia)
Shame (Steve McQueen)
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (Guy Ritchie)
Super 8 (JJ Abrams)
The Trip (Michael Winterbottom)
The Way Back (Peter Weir)
Win Win (Tom McCarthy)
Winnie the Pooh (Steve Anderson and Don Hall)

5 ratings
Bridesmaids (Paul Feig)
Carnage (Roman Polanski)
A Dangerous Method (David Cronenberg)
Dolphin Tale (Charles Martin Smith)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 (David Yates)
The Housemaid (Im Sang-soo)
The Ides of March (George Clooney)
Insidious (James Wan)
Jane Eyre (Cary Fukunaga)
Kaboom (Gregg Araki)
Kung Fu Panda 2 (Jennifer Yuh Nelson)
Rio (Carlos Saldanha)
Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Rupert Wyatt)
Thor (Kenneth Branagh)

4 ratings
Film: Socialisme (Jean-Luc Godard)
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (Rob Marshall)
Spy Kids: All the Time in the World (Robert Rodriguez)
The Three Musketeers: Someone Forgot to Put a Colon in the Title (Paul “Not Thomas” Anderson)
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (Michael Bay)
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 (Bill Condon)

3 ratings
The Green Hornet (Michel Gondry)
Happy Feet Two (George Miller)

2 ratings

1 ratings

0 ratings

Did not finish due to lack of interest:
Aurora (Cristi Puiu)
Crazy, Stupid, Love. (John Requa and Glen Ficarra)
The Future (Miranda July)
Rubber (Quentin Dupieux)
Special Treatment (Jeanne Labrune)

Also, here are the ones I still want to see that I haven’t gotten around to yet for some reason or other. As with last year, the numbers in [brackets] denote how interested I am in the movie, [1] meaning something I believe to be a top priority to see, [2] denoting a title I feel I ought to see before the Muriels deadline, [3] meaning movies I hope to see but won’t feel too terrible if I don’t get around to them, and [4] is reserved for stuff I’ll end up seeing for my family or awards-baity movies that I’ll possibly check out if they end up getting good reviews from critics I trust and not just Oscar-predicting types.

Now available on DVD and/or Netflix:
Bellflower (Evan Glodell) [3]
Caterpillar (Koji Wakamatsu) [3] {now streaming{
I Saw the Devil (Kim Jee Woon) [3] {now streaming}
The Woman (Lucky McKee) [3]
Warrior (Gavin O’Connor) [3]

Available on SundanceNow:
House of Tolerance / Pleasures (Bertrand Bonello) [2] {2 Feb @ Wex}
Sleeping Beauty (Julia Leigh) [3] {7 Feb @ Gateway}

Coming soon to DVD:
The Mill and the Cross (Lech Majewski) [2] {31 Jan}

Coming to DVD and/or Netflix post-Muriel deadline:
Elite Squad: The Enemy Within (Jose Padilha) [3] {14 Feb}
Urbanized (Gary Hustwit) [3] {14 Feb}
The Skin I Live In (Pedro Almodovar) [2] {6 Mar}
The Muppets (James Bobin) [3] {20 Mar}
Tyrannosaur (Paddy Considine) [3] {3 Apr}

Now playing in local theatres:
The Artist (Michel Hazanavicius) [2]
War Horse (Steven Spielberg) [3]
Young Adult (Jason Reitman) [3]

Coming to town after Muriels deadline, if at all
George Harrison: Living in the Material World (Martin Scorsese) [1]
Into the Abyss (Werner Herzog) [1] {24 Feb @ Gateway}
Margaret (Kenneth Lonergan) [1]
Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory (Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky) [1]
A Separation (Asghar Farhadi) [1] {24 Feb @ Drexel}

My Joy (Sergei Loznitsa) [2]
Pina (Wim Wenders) [2] {17 Feb @ Gateway}

Coriolanus (Ralph Fiennes) [3]
Go Go Tales (Abel Ferrara) [3]
Kinyarwanda (Alrick Brown) [3]
Rampart (Owen Moverman) [3]
Shit Year (Cam Archer) [3]

Might see out of a sense of obligation now that they've gotten Oscar love:
Albert Nobbs (Rodrigo Garcia) [4] {27 Jan in theatres}
The Help (Tate Taylor) [4] {now on DVD}
The Iron Lady (Phyllida Lloyd) [4] {now in theatres}
My Week With Marilyn (Simon Curtis) [4] {now in theatres}

Oh great, since it got nominated for Best Picture I have to see it now damn it:
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Stephen Daldry) [89-ish] {now in theatres}

Cave of Forgotten Dreams (2010, Werner Herzog)

2011-05-11T22:35:00.000-04:00

Suppose someone told you that Werner Herzog made a documentary about the cave containing the world’s oldest prehistoric paintings. If you haven’t seen this, try to imagine the finished product. Chances are you’ll be pretty close to what Herzog actually churned out. In the case of many of Herzog’s more esoteric docs, there’s the feeling that he chose the subjects primarily because he wanted to experience them firsthand, but few of them have felt more like home videos from the world’s most exclusive working vacation than this one. Naturally, the stuff in the caves is the film’s highlight- for once, the 3-D actually works in the film’s favor, the extra dimension providing depth and texture to both the paintings and the caverns as a whole, and Herzog’s government mandated use of handheld lanterns enhance the beauty of the underground shots in a way more traditional lighting otherwise could not. Unfortunately, Herzog unwisely underscores these majestic shots with an portentous score that overwhelms the visuals- a particularly egregious misstep coming so soon after a scientist beseeches the other visitors to listen to and appreciate the silence of the cave.

Likewise, the stuff above ground is largely from the standard Herzog playbook, such as a cavalcade of esoteric interview subjects encouraged by the director to show off their idiosyncrasies, including an experimental archaeologist who dresses in reindeer pelts and the master perfumer literally trying to sniff out another undiscovered cave. All in all, there are precious few surprises in Cave of Forgotten Dreams, although the out-of-left-field postscript that closes the movie almost compensates. Still, if the idea of seeing immaculately preserved cave paintings from thirty millennia ago holds any interest for you, then walk, don’t run, because considering how few people actually get the chance to visit the Chauvet caves, this will probably be your only chance to check them out. So even if Cave is a disappointing film, it’s an important one nonetheless.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

Potiche (2010, Francois Ozon)

2011-05-11T22:34:00.000-04:00

Was beginning to worry that Ozon might not have another romp like 8 Women in him, but his reunion with Catherine Deneuve has pulled him out of his rut of self-seriousness. Deneuve, partly due to her status as an icon of France (not just French cinema either), is eternally underappreciated as a film actor, but she makes it look so damn easy that Ozon can go wild with the kitsch and seventies-throwback style without spinning the film off into the stratosphere. He also surrounds her with a fine supporting cast- Karin Viard is clearly the MVP, practically thrumming with personal energy as the devoted secretary and mistress of Deneuve’s husband who flowers under Deneuve’s guidance, but Gerard Depardieu also has a lot of fun as the local politico who carries a torch for Deneuve after all these years, and I’ve become highly impressed at Jeremie Renier’s ability to switch gears from the hardscrabble of world of the Dardennes to the sort of boyish charmer he plays here. Potiche is light as a feather and largely lacking in the rich subtext that shot through 8 Women if one bothered to look, although allegedly the film’s final reel, in which Deneuve runs for political office, was inspired by the 2007 presidential race. But even for those with little knowledge of French politics (including yours truly), Potiche is a more than worthy film, and one that left me with a goofy grin on my face from beginning to end.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

True Grit (2010, Joel and Ethan Coen)

2011-01-03T22:43:00.001-05:00

I realize I’m in the minority here, but I personally found A Serious Man to be one of the Coen brothers’ lesser efforts. On one level, it was interesting to see two of American cinema’s most prominent stylists take on a project inspired by their family histories. But while most Coen brothers films inject unique touches into the framework of classical genres, they didn’t have that jumping-off point in A Serious Man. Consequently, the film feels overly fussed-over, with crises and indignities heaped upon a characteristically Coen-esque put-upon schlub. And although this character type anchored great Coen projects from Barton Fink to The Man Who Wasn’t There, without the genre framework to prop him up he’s mostly just a punching bag.

So as you might imagine, True Grit was much more my speed. Making a straight-up Western for the first time gives the Coens ample opportunities to show off their flair for visual panache and vivid supporting characters in a new venue. But while it’s easy to imagine the directors being attracted to Charles Portis’ novel for its tangy use of frontier patois, I also think they were drawn to the strength of its protagonist- no, not cantankerous marshal Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges, marvelously dissipated), but steely youngster Mattie Ross (newcomer Hailee Steinfeld).

Much has been said about the Coens’ scorn for many of their heroes, but if one looks back at their films, there’s also a pattern of strong women who the brothers seem to genuinely admire. Most obvious among these is of course Marge Gunderson, whose folksy demeanor and unmistakable pregnancy couldn’t hide her canny police work. But stalwart women pop up again and again in their films, from leads like Abby in Blood Simple and Edwina in Raising Arizona to supporting characters like Barton Fink’s Audrey and No Country for Old Men’s Carla Jean, who even in their limited screen time provide emotional grounding for their stories.

Mattie is in this tradition, and Steinfeld is up to the task. Still in her teens, she is nonetheless able to convincingly match up with the Coens’ gifted ensemble, from heavy hitters like Bridges and Matt Damon (as the vain Texas Ranger LaBoeuf) to the directors’ requisite rogue’s gallery of supporting performers, including Dakin Matthews as the irascible Col. Stonehill, with whom Mattie shares a perfectly-realized negotiation scene. In less capable hands, Mattie Ross would have come off not only as a little girl in a tough man’s world, but as a contemporary kid playing dress-up. But Steinfeld proves herself up to the task of selling the stylized dialogue and holding her own with the grown-ups. So near the end of the film, when LaBoeuf demonstrates his respect for Mattie’s skills out on the trail, we can’t help but concur.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

The Fighter (2010, David O. Russell)

2011-01-03T22:42:00.001-05:00

Nowadays, many cinephiles apply the word “auteur” to directors who build their movies from the ground up, writing and producing (and sometimes more than that) as well as directing. But in the formative years of auteur theory, many of the movement’s most revered figures (e.g. Hitchcock) didn’t write their own material, but instead took other people’s screenplays and make them their own in production. One of things that makes The Fighter compelling from a critical standpoint is the sensibility that David O. Russell brings to the film. It’s the first of Russell’s films to date that he didn’t write or co-write, and although the relatively pedestrian screenplay shows through in the final result, Russell finds plenty of ways to make it feel like it’s of a piece with his other work.

The most obvious example of this is the sense of barely controlled chaos in the scenes involving the family of Micky Ward (played by Mark Wahlberg). Ward is supposed to be the hero of The Fighter, but he barely registers in scenes opposite his crack-addicted half-brother Dicky (a live-wire turn by Christian Bale), his domineering mother (Melissa Leo), and his gaggle of trashy sisters. Taken by themselves, these scenes are pretty grating- especially the sisters, who seemingly move and think as a collective. But in terms of the movie as a whole, Russell makes them work, specifically as a counterpoint to Ward’s budding relationship with local bartender Charlene (Amy Adams) who wants to help Micky get his boxing career back on track.

It’s this contrast between simplicity and chaos in Micky’s life that gives the movie a kind of screw-loose energy that distinguishes it from most underdog sports sagas. In Russell’s telling of the story, what holds Micky back as a boxer isn’t a lack of ability, or even poor management by Dicky, but the fact that he’s surrounded by noise and disorder with no means of escape. It’s only when Charlene makes her way into his life that he has an oasis, a place to find comfort and clarity amidst the hubbub. Just like the hero of I [Heart] Huckabees, it’s when he finds that clarity in his life that he’s able to move forward and accomplish his goals- in Micky’s case, to get a shot at the title.

Of course, Micky’s rise to the title bout is fairly standard as far as boxing movies go. But I did enjoy the detail with which Russell and his screenwriters explore the strategies behind boxing instead of simply showing us two fighters slugging away at each other until one of them got knocked out. However, despite the film’s obvious knowledge of boxing, it’s most interesting for the way Russell shows Micky learning to distinguish between the two contrasting sides of his life, and later on, to reconcile them. The Fighter could have been a straight-up paycheck job for its director, but because of Russell’s unwillingness to be lazy, it’s cut or two above what it might otherwise have been.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

Never Let Me Go (2010, Mark Romanek)

2010-10-20T17:54:00.000-04:00

“Everyone I know goes away in the end.” ~ Nine Inch Nails, “Hurt”

When asked recently about the essential difference between his original U.K. version of The Office and its American remake, series creator/star Ricky Gervais stated that while Americans are brought up to believe in their boundless potential for success, British children are more often reminded of their social standing and limitations. I expect that this difference has quite a bit to do with the chilly reception Mark Romanek’s delicate adaptation of Never Let Me Go has found on these shores. Like The Remains of the Day, the most notable big-screen Kazuo Ishiguro adaptation, Never Let Me Go is a story about people who have been born and raised for the express purpose of serving. It’s not necessarily a theme that resonates widely in a culture that values determination and grit, but it’s a more universal idea than most people would probably care to admit.

It’s impossible for me to discuss the particulars of Never Let Me Go without spoiling the plot, so here goes.

Never Let Me Go is an almost unbearably sad story of three people- Kathy (Carey Mulligan), the film’s protagonist, and her friends Tommy (Andrew Garfield) and Ruth (Keira Knightley)- who have been bred specifically to serve as organ donors for others who have been born naturally. Like the meagerly paid Third World workers who toil in ramshackle factories to manufacture the products we take for granted, these “donors” are kept out of sight from the general population- less emotionally messy that way. From childhood, they’re sequestered in an isolated school called Hailsham, where they are taught numerous academic subjects in a way that doesn’t prepare them for the future so much as allow them to mark time before the inevitable. And these are the lucky ones- the administration of Hailsham sees itself as progressive, if you can call encouraging children to hope for the future before slamming the door on these hopes “progressive.”

What seems to turn off the film’s critics is the acceptable the characters have for their fate. However, it felt right to me. Since they were born, these children have been brought up to obey their elders and betters and not to question what they’re told about the world. They’re kept isolated from anything that might contradict what they already know, and are fed rumors about the horrors that face those who run away. All their lives, the characters in Never Let Me Go are told that their only worth is as spare parts for others, so it seems somehow right that they wouldn’t try to escape their fate for fear that they wouldn’t fulfill their appointed “purpose.”

Besides, what would people have this be? The Island, in which characters who have been raised in captivity suddenly morph into motorcycle daredevils and shoot-‘em-up action stars? Give me a break. When a person has spent his or her entire life clinging to a shred of hope, it’s the more mundane things that begin to sustain them- Lucy’s childhood dreams of owning a horse, or the art projects the students are assigned with the promise that the best will be selected to be shown in a gallery. As an adult, Kathy becomes a “carer,” tending to other donors and shepherding them through to their “completions” (even in death, donors aren’t granted full humanity). It’s a difficult responsibility, but Kathy believes she’s doing a service, bringing comfort to her fellow donors, including Tommy and Ruth. Trouble is, every donor’s got to reach completion sooner or later.

Late in the film, the characters hear a rumor that donors can be granted a few extra years if they are found to be in love. For Kathy and Tommy, who have harbored feelings for each other since their Hailsham years, this presents a new kind of hope. However, the movie never makes this possibility seem any more real than the rumors of Hailsham escapees turning up dead and mutilated. But while we don’t believe the rumor to be true- and it’s possible that Kathy doesn’t believe it very deeply either- Tommy is excited about the possibility of a delayed completion. It’s in these scenes where Garfield’s performance, the best in the film, gets especially fascinating. While Kathy and Ruth have grown up to be fairly normal (considering the circumstances), Tommy has remained more or less childlike, and so his efforts to prove he deserves to be granted an extension find him reverting to the ways he learned at Hailsham, as he draws sketch after sketch to show off his creative mind and soul. When he discovers the truth, it devastates him so much that all he can do is break down screaming as he did when he was a child. It’s a heartbreaking moment, as is his final scene, in which he meets his destiny by turning to Kathy and giving her one final sad smile.

One of the marvels of Never Let Me Go is how precisely Romanek captures the very specific tone of the novel. Ishiguro’s book is fairly light on story, so in order for the movie to work at all Romanek needed to find the right feeling, and he never missteps. Every element of the film- the performances, Rachel Portman’s score, the muted cinematography and art direction- is tightly controlled, all in the service of sustaining the mood of resigned fatalism at the heart of Ishiguro’s vision. Romanek doesn’t reach for his effects because to do so would break the movie’s spell. Like its central character, Never Let Me Go refuses to rage against the dying of the light, and while of the movie’s critics might object to that, I for one found it to be incredibly moving. By refusing to pander to the audience’s need to catharsis, Romanek has done justice to a great book.
Rating: 8 out of 10.

The Social Network (2010, David Fincher)

2010-10-11T18:39:00.002-04:00

Nowadays, we’re told from childhood that we can do damn near anything, provided we’re willing to put forth the effort. And while that’s not entirely wrong, the truth is that some people have a much easier path to worldly success than others. To be born into money is a tremendous leg up for a child, since his family’s social and financial status allows them to use their money and connections to give their child an advantage over those who are less fortunate. And if David Fincher’s spellbinding The Social Network is any indication, the stratification is even more pronounced at the top. In the world envisioned by Fincher and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, the Harvard students we see aren’t content to accept that they’re the cream of the crop because they attend America’s most prestigious university- they need to further stratify their society, with the truly elite winning invitation to the school’s prestigious “final clubs” while the others find themselves on the outside, looking in.

Mark Zuckerberg, played by Jesse Eisenberg, is one of those on the outside. Early in the film he despairs, “how do I distinguish myself when I’m surrounded by people who all got 1600 on their SATs?” He sees induction into a final club as being his ticket to greater things in life, and he pictures (fantasizes?) soirees in which Harvard’s best and brightest bus in stunning young women for all sorts of decadent activities. Meanwhile, the best Mark can manage is to get into a Jewish frat that holds kitschy “Caribbean nights.” It doesn’t help that Mark is lacking in social acumen- the movie’s first scene finds him talking circles around his girlfriend, belittling her college (“Why do you need to study? You go to BU”), and insinuating that she slept with the doorman.

Naturally, the girl in question calls Mark an asshole and breaks up with him, which prompts Mark to get drunk, post nasty remarks about her to his blog, and extrapolate his feelings about her into a resentment toward all the women around him by starting a blog called “Facemash”, which asked visitors to compare the relative hotness of Harvard’s coeds. The stunt ended up crashing Harvard’s servers and landing Mark in hot water with the school’s administration, but it also made him a celebrity on campus and attracted the attention of a trio of popular seniors, the Winklevoss twins (Armie Hammer and Josh Pence) and their friend Divya Narendra (Max Minghella). The three of them approach Mark to assist them with an idea of theirs, called The Harvard Connection, which would connect Harvard men to connect with interested women, since “women want to go with guys who go to Harvard.” Mark, of course, accepts.

It’s the so-called “Winklevii” who present the movie’s strongest contrast to Mark. Whereas Mark is average in stature and appearance, the Winklevii are practically Aryan poster boys (“I’m 6’5”, 220 pounds, and there’s two of me”). Likewise, the Winklevii are rich kids, honors students, and star, Olympic-bound rowers on Harvard’s celebrated crew team. Divya appears to be formidable unto himself, but he’s practically the Winklevii’s sidekick. Perhaps most importantly, all three are longstanding members of one of Harvard’s most elite final clubs, and when they propose their idea to Mark they’re only able to take him into the club as far as “the bike room.”

So why does Mark take the Winklevii and Navendra up on their idea only to turn his back on them almost instantaneously to pursue what would eventually become Facebook? According to the Winklevii, Facebook was a ripoff of their Harvard Connection concept, but I don’t see that many similarities to be honest. On the basis of The Social Network, Mark didn’t steal the concept so much as turn it upside down. Whereas the Winklevii were two of Harvard’s golden boys, Mark was an outsider in almost every sense. He saw The Harvard Connection as reinforcing the sense of entitlement that the Winklevii and their peers felt at being rich, smart, and popular. While he and guys like him yearned to be accepted into the Winklevii’s sphere, he also resented their eagerness to trade on the irresistibility of their lifestyle, while employing someone else to do most of the leg work. All this, of course, in the guise of “rehabilitating Mark’s image”, to use the Winklevii’s condescending phrase. What they don’t realize is that Mark won’t be condescended to- not by Harvard’s chief of security, not by the Winklevii’s smug attorney, not even by the golden boys of a final club Mark wishes to join.

The Harvard Connection was basically another way for the Winklevii and those like them to confirm their awesomeness by trumpeting the irresistible allure of the Harvard name to women who were in the market for the most eligible men out there. Like so many aspects of their blessed lives, it was defined by its exclusionary nature. But although Facebook was only available at certain college in its early years, any student who attended those colleges could join. Consequently, Mark’s creation of Facebook feels like a raised middle finger to the Winklevii and their cocoon of privilege. When asked why the Winklevii filed the suit, Mark posits that “for the first time in their lives things didn’t turn out as they’d planned.” In short, they weren’t the golden boys anymore. We see the Winklevii competing in one of the world’s toniest upper-crust sporting events, the Henley Regatta, and their hard-fought loss to the Dutch crew team feels like small potatoes to them after they’re told that video from the race had already been posted on Facebook. In response, the Winklevii (who had previously tried to be honorable about the whole thing because they thought it was the Harvard way to be) show their true colors by saying, “let’s get this frickin’ nerd.”

Of course, it would be much easier to root for Mark Zuckerberg if The Social Network it was just about him beating a matching pair of Teutonic stuffed shirts at their own game. But Mark is too prickly a character for that. Fincher and Sorkin contrast Mark’s difficulties with the Winklevii with a very different lawsuit filed by his Facebook co-founder and former best friend, Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield, very good). As Mark worked on the coding and design of Facebook, Eduardo supplied his business savvy, first supplying some of his own money before venturing out to find advertising revenue.

Unfortunately for Eduardo, advertising didn’t mesh well with Mark’s image for Facebook, which was “cool” precisely because it wasn’t plastered with ads. So when Napster founder Sean Parker (played by Justin Timberlake) swooped in to hook Mark up with his venture capitalist friends, Eduardo found himself being forced out of a business he’s helped start and into which he’d poured much of his money and energy. Once again, there are some class dynamics in play- Saverin was a buttoned-down prep school graduate, whereas Parker was a self-made Silicon Valley rock star who lived fast and seemed less interested in making money than staying on the edge. The difference between Eduardo and the Winklevii is that Eduardo honestly cares about Facebook. The business with the Winklevii was just that- business- but Eduardo comes off almost like a jilted lover. In fact, during his final deposition, Eduardo can’t even bear to look Mark in the face, turning his chair around and gazing out the window with tears in his eyes.

The Social Network is the most impressive Hollywood movie I’ve seen this year, with a whip-smart screenplay, stellar filmmaking, and impeccable performances across the board. Eisenberg’s work as Zuckerberg is light years from the affable nebbishes he usually plays, and the supporting cast- yes, even Justin Timberlake- is first-rate across the board. But honestly, I think I’ve said plenty about the movie already. Not only are the film’s other pleasures articulated clearly by some of the other reviews out there, but this is such a deep film that it will take multiple viewings just for me to absorb everything it has to offer. And who knows- maybe after I revisit it, I’ll bump this rating up even higher.

Rating: 9 out of 10.

Life During Wartime (2009, Todd Solondz)

2010-10-05T23:39:00.001-04:00

You know, I think I’m pretty much done with Solondz. Happiness has its problems, particularly when Solondz feels the need to provoke, but it also makes some genuinely cogent points about the inability of its characters to relate to each other, or in some cases even try. For the most part, Storytelling and Palindromes kept the provocations while jettisoning the incisiveness, but I had some hope that Solondz might be able to pull it together for this sequel to Happiness. Alas, no such luck. Life During Wartime tones down the audience-baiting (to a point anyway), but doesn’t fill the gaps with anything interesting. It’s that rarest of creatures- a bland Todd Solondz movie.

That’s not to say it doesn’t have a handful of interesting ideas on its plate. Foremost among these is Solondz’s re-casting of the entire ensemble. The most obvious impetus behind this is to suggest the passage of time and the effects the years have had on the characters. Nebbishy pedophile Bill Maplewood, formerly played by Dylan Baker, has emerged from a decade-long prison sentence as hulking, monosyllabic Ciaran Hinds. Sunny bleeding-heart Joy has morphed from Jane Adams into wet blanket Shirley Henderson. Allen, the shut-in prank caller once played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, has turned into The Wire’s Michael Kenneth Williams, picking up additional dangerous hobbies along the way.

And so on. It would be easy to call Solondz’s re-casting a cheap formalist prank. After all, this was the guy who alternated half a dozen different actresses of different ages, body types, and colors (along with one male) in the lead role of Palindromes. But I think that Solondz recognizes that most of his audience will already be familiar with Happiness- enough that our familiarity will inform our pre-conceived notions of the characters and their lives. Consequently, he’s able to use the re-casting of the roles to comment on how greatly they’ve changed in the intervening years. For example, in the first movie Dr. Maplewood’s wife Trish, then played by Cynthia Stevenson, was something of a pushover, but a decade of raising her children alone while moving past her family’s dicey past (with help from prescription medications) has turned her into the quirkier, more imposing Alison Janney. Since we already know where she’s been, it’s interesting to see how much she’s changed.

Alas, if only the rest of the movie was so thought-provoking. Not that it doesn’t try, mind you- Solondz clearly thinks he has plenty to say on the subject of forgiveness. And maybe the film could have been a fascinating treatise on forgiveness if only he didn’t feel the need to make his characters talk about it in every other scene. The most egregious mouthpiece for Solondz’s thesis is little Timmy Maplewood (played by Dylan Riley Snyder), who at one point grills his mother and her new beau (the decidedly non-fruity Michael Lerner) about the concept of forgiveness and how far it should be taken. Timmy’s conflicted feelings about forgiveness make sense for his character- after all, this is a kid who has just discovered that his dad isn’t a dead war hero but rather an imprisoned sex offender. But Solondz just doesn’t know when to stop with Timmy. Scene after scene finds Timmy grappling with his feelings loudly and at length, until all I could do was give up on the character. It doesn’t help matters that Solondz feels the need to spout off profanities at several points, or that Snyder is less effective as a flesh-and-blood performer than an image of boyish innocence.

If Timmy is coming to grips with the past, his elders are haunted by it. In the case of Joy, this haunting is literal- she’s visited at several points by Andy (previously Jon Lovitz, now Paul Reubens), who committed suicide after she snubbed him in the first movie. During his visits, Andy appeals to Joy’s memory of their relationship (such as it was) and remembers the pain she once caused him. He also invites her to join him in death, an invitation that’s extended to her once more by Allen’s spirit after he too kills himself. The scenes with the ghosts show some promise- Solondz means to position them as the counterpoint to Timmy’s notions of forgiveness- but mostly come off as clumsy.

This clumsy execution of potentially effective ideas is a common thread that runs through Life During Wartime. There are a handful of moments that actually work as they should, notably a scene in which Charlotte Rampling plays a self-loathing woman who picks up Bill at a bar. But more scenes are like the film’s climax- in which Timmy mistakes an innocent male bonding gesture for an unwelcome sexual advance- which is so hamfisted in its setup and follow-through that most of its impact gets blunted. In the end, very little Solondz does in Life During Wartime manages to hit home. Storytelling and Palindromes didn’t work for me, but at least they were the work of a filmmaker who was trying. By contrast, Life During Wartime finds Solondz, like his characters, replaying old tapes.

Frankly, I’m getting tired of listening to these old tapes. Once again, Solondz’s worldview can be boiled down to “life sucks, and then you die.” The only thing new he can bring to the table here is that it sucks when you’re dead too. But that’s not enough to make his brand of nihilism any less cheap. I’m not averse to bleakness in my movies- I love No Country for Old Men, after all- but if that’s all you got, you don’t have much of anything. Unless I hear that Solondz suddenly has more to say, I think I’ll forego his movies from now on.

Rating: 4 out of 10.

The Town (2010, Ben Affleck)

2010-09-20T22:39:00.000-04:00

One of the biggest surprises of 2007 was the discovery of Ben Affleck as a serious filmmaker. Some would argue that much of the success of Affleck’s debut feature Gone Baby Gone was due to some fine acting and strong source material by Dennis Lehane, but Affleck was to be commended for eliciting those performances from his cast and finding the right tone and style for the material. Unfortunately, he can’t replicate this success with his follow-up film The Town. There are points in the film where he seems to be chasing after the same downbeat thriller vibe, but the magic never quite happens.

Part of the problem is that the source material just isn’t as rich as Gone Baby Gone. Whereas the earlier film distinguished itself by the way it dealt with the morality behind its characters’ actions, here he’s working with little more than a boilerplate heist movie, with all the off-the-shelf elements that genre implies. Hero who wants to escape his life? Check. Tenacious cop bearing down on our hero just as he’s trying to go straight? Yup. Loose-cannon best friend who becomes more of a liability as the story progresses? You betcha. Final big job to end all big jobs? Obviously.

That’s not to say that it’s impossible for a formulaic heist movie to be good. Hell, considering all the clichés it embraces, Heat is pretty much the Love, Actually of the genre. But when the story elements are so familiar, the only way a heist movie can distinguish itself is with style and filmmaking brio. And Affleck just isn’t a strong enough filmmaker to sell this material in a way that makes it feel exciting. The characters in the film are either off-the-shelf (Jon Hamm’s all-business FBI agent, Jeremy Renner’s unstable crook, et al), or worse, unbelievable. This is especially true of Affleck’s character, a career criminal who comes off less like a hard-bitten townie than a secular saint, pining for his lost mother and forever looking for a way out of his life.
Personally, I think the romance between Affleck and Hall would have been more compelling had Affleck’s character been a more honest-to-goodness bad boy. Hall plays a bank manager whose life is shaken up when Affleck and his gang briefly take her hostage during a heist, and in the film she seems to respond primarily to Affleck’s goodness. However, I think the dynamic could have been thought-provoking if instead of showing her to be traumatized by the abduction, it could have kick-started a kind of hunger for danger that manifested itself in her going after dangerous men. It certainly would have felt less drippy than it feels in The Town, with the added bonus of not leading to the film’s almost laughable final minute.

I recently told a friend that I’ve gotten to the point in my life as a movie lover that I’d rather see a movie that people seem to either love or hate (but respond to strongly either way) than a movie about which most people seem to be fairly lukewarm. I wasn’t talking about The Town when I made this statement, but I could have been, since it’s a movie that falls resolutely into the latter category. It’s not bad, and certainly not offensive, but it’s so safe and middle-of-the-road that it doesn’t feel particularly necessary- even the climactic “big job” is underwhelming despite an intriguing setup. Most of the pleasures of The Town are borrowed pleasures, attributable more to the genre itself than anything special the film does. I never thought I’d say this a decade ago, but I honestly expected more from Ben Affleck.

Rating: 5 out of 10.

Wild Grass (2009, Alain Resnais)

2010-09-07T23:26:00.002-04:00

Well, now that that’s out of the way… After the lovely and relatively straightforward Not on the Lips and Private Fears in Public Places, Resnais is back to the head-scratchers of old with his latest film, Wild Grass. I suppose that what really perplexed me about this is how little I was prepared for it. Perhaps it was the other recent Resnais works, or maybe it’s just my general experience with aged filmmakers, but I was blindsided how strange a moviegoing experience this was. What’s more, the opening minutes of the film do almost nothing to prepare one for the rest of it- the first couple of scenes, in which Resnais’ eternal flibbertigibbet-muse Sabine Azema heads to her favorite shoe boutique to buy new shoes for her oddly-shaped feet only to have her handbag swiped immediately after, could have led off any number of whimsical rom-coms.

From that point, Resnais only gradually reveals how odd things are in the film’s world, beginning with his use of voiceover narration to describe the sinister thoughts (fantasies? Memories?) of male lead Andre Dussolier. Eventually, Wild Grass reveals itself as one of the fou-est tales of l’amour to hit the screen in a long, long time. Most love stories between crazy people de-emphasize how deeply troubled they are in favor of warm-fuzzy sentiments about misunderstood loners finding each other, but Resnais isn’t interested in sentiment. Instead, he lets Dussolier’s actions become increasingly inappropriate (slashing her tires, for example) before he finally gets a tongue-lashing from the local police and goes back on good behavior. Then, all of a sudden, Azema decides she wants him too, and goes off her own deep end.

What to make of it? I’m honestly not sure. What I do know is that I want to re-visit this movie more than damn near any other I’ve seen so far this year (that it’s bloody gorgeous helps too). Maybe what was needed was for me to sit through it that initial time, to wipe away whatever expectations I might have had for the film. And now that I know better what’s coming, up through that final shift in narrative direction, I should be able to better appreciated what Resnais does. Thus, the rating below should be considered even more provisional than usual.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

The American (2010, Anton Corbijn)

2010-09-07T23:26:00.001-04:00

Is there any archetypal character with a higher mortality rate than that of the crook doing his last job? Once you know that, The American becomes a slow trudge to an inevitable end, complete with a Rififi-style last drive. Harsh? Perhaps. But though The American aspires to be a high-toned take on a stock genre premise, it feels fairly standard-issue. Oh sure, George Clooney manages to smuggle his trademark cool into the story. However, aside from some pretty but fairly uninspired images, there doesn’t seem to be much on the mind of former music video director Corbijn. Oh sure, there’s plenty of arthouse ponderousness and hearkening back to genre classics (some Melville here, a dash of Leone there), but this is a film with almost nothing to say. And for a while, Corbijn almost manages to make it work largely because he whittles down the story to almost nothing aside from Clooney immersing himself in the job.

The American ultimately loses its way by reverting to conventional plotting, in which the nature of Clooney’s job is revealed, a possibly risky dalliance with a local prostitute turns into the hero’s best hope to escape, and so on. The most glaring example of this comes in the form of Clooney’s handler Pavel, played by Johan Leysen, who exists in the movie solely to voice what little subtext there is (“you’re losing it”) and to set the plot in motion for the dunderheads in the audience. In the end, The American is a textbook 5, meaning it’s largely a near-miss but a diverting enough one, thanks to the expected Clooney coolness and plenty of welcome nudity from the luscious Violante Placido.

Rating: 5 out of 10.

Get Low (2009, Aaron Schneider)

2010-08-31T00:06:00.001-04:00

The history of movies is filled with hermits, but few have been as precisely drawn as Felix Bush, the protagonist of Get Low. Played by Robert Duvall, Felix is a cantankerous old coot- the word “old” would seem redundant but for the agreeable rhythm it brings to the phrase- who’s holed up in his cabin for the better part of four decades, with only a mule as company. One thing I appreciated about Get Low is that it doesn’t strive too hard to make Felix seem purer or more genuine than the more sophisticated townsfolk he meets throughout the film, or to turn him into some kind of backwoods philosopher. That’s not to say Felix doesn’t have wisdom of a sort, but it’s the kind of wisdom one gains through fending for oneself for a long period of time. Four decades alone hasn’t brought Felix any closer to figuring out the meaning of life, but they’ve given him plenty of time to perfect his recipe for rabbit stew. I also enjoyed how Felix’s lifestyle has given him a distinctive speaking style that’s simultaneously colorful and no-nonsense, as if he hasn’t missed having to engage in social niceties and wouldn’t mind not having to again. Observe the way he doesn’t linger any longer than he has to in a conversation- once he’s made his point, he simply picks up and leaves.

Get Low is a film of no great ambition but plenty of small pleasures, beginning with the performances, as one would expect from a movie starring Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek, and Bill Murray. Duvall has played more than his share of ornery cusses, but he’s never played one quite like Felix, and it’s great to see him finding new wrinkles to a character that in other hands might have seemed like a cliché. Spacek brings an un-showy warmth to the role of a woman who has a somewhat fraught history with Felix, and Murray puts just the right spin on the slick undertaker who has no qualms about playing along with Felix’s idea to stage his own funeral while he’s still around to do it, if it means Murray gets his hands on some of Felix’s “hermit money.” Just as noteworthy, in a quieter way, is Lucas Black as Murray’s less gung-ho associate, who might come off as a textbook audience surrogate but for Black’s gift (in evidence ever since Sling Blade) for performances that are free of affectation and phoniness. And Bill Cobbs gets a nice supporting role as the one man who knows the truth about Felix’s past, the cause of much speculation among the locals.

Get Low isn’t particularly distinguished cinematically- with a cast like this, Schneider seems primarily concerned with not getting in the way. But I think the unassuming direction works in the film’s favor, since instead of ladling on the cutesy touches like so many would-be festival favorites, Get Low lets the charm flow naturally from the story and the performances. I just wish that Schneider and his screenwriters had the confidence to end the movie one scene before they did, on a perfectly lovely bit of homespun poetry involving a final guest arriving at Felix’s living funeral. But no matter- Get Low is a refreshing bit of low-key entertainment, one that’s especially welcome at the end of a summer filled with bloated spectacle. I don’t think I can put it better than my friend Craig Kennedy, who said, “it might not rock your world, but it’ll make it a nicer place to be for a couple of hours.”

Rating: 7 out of 10.

Restrepo (2010, Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger)

2010-08-16T18:54:00.002-04:00

It’s a challenge for me to review a movie like Restrepo. It’s not that I think that it’s a bad movie, or even a particularly odd one. But given the film’s nature- Hetherington and Junger are journalists rather than filmmakers, and the film is almost pure reportage- that there’s almost nothing to report, positive or negative, as regards the cinematic merits of Restrepo. In other words, if you’re down with what Hetherington and Junger are doing, you’ll be down with the movie.

For me, it was kind of a wash- an admirable wash to be sure, but a wash all the same. Sure, I can appreciate the difficulty incurred by the directors in making Restrepo, being embedded for the better part of a year with soldiers in Afghanistan’s most dangerous war zone. And Lord knows I have nothing but admiration for the soldiers stationed there, risking their lives against a largely unseen enemy in an area where even the most sympathetic locals aren’t eager to have their home turned into a battleground.

But although the film does provide some vivid illustrations of what’s happening in the war in Afghanistan, I was left fairly cold by Restrepo. Part of the problem is that I’m generally cold on old-fashioned Pennebaker-style “direct cinema”, but when I think of great documentaries, I expect a little more from the filmmakers to be in the right place at the right time, camera in hand. In other words, it’s not enough to show me something. The directors must assemble their footage into something that expresses a film that stirs the mind, instead of simply trying to wow us with the footage itself.

Now, I’m not asking all documentarians to be Michael Moore (heaven forbid). But while in journalism the story itself is of paramount of importance, the most important aspect of making a film is assembling the story in a way that accentuates the themes and ideas contained therein. The biggest flaw of Restrepo is that it’s so short on actual ideas. In other words, Hetherington and Junger just don’t have a whole lot to say. And while some of the footage is indeed impressive, that’s just not enough to turn Restrepo into the great definitive document of Afghanistan that its supports insist it is.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

Dogtooth (2009, Yorgos Lanthimos)

2010-08-16T18:54:00.001-04:00

Often, when critics extol a movie for being imaginative and creative, they do so in order to praise flights of fancy that make their hearts leap with joy, such as the works of Hayao Miyazaki or the geniuses at Pixar. So what to make of a film like Dogtooth, a film that’s as imaginative as any film I’ve seen this year, but in a particularly dark vein? True, Dogtooth is set in a recognizable real-world setting- a suburban family home- but for all intensive purposes it might as well be another world.

The unnamed family at the center of Dogtooth is one founded not on love but rather an insidious sort of mindfuckery, in which the parents have barricaded their children in the house from birth and taught them to fear the outside world. The high wall that surrounds the family’s property speaks most plainly to their isolationism, but many of the parents’ manipulations are more subtle, as when the children are taught words describing the outside, only to have them (mis-)defined as objects that remind them of domestic comfort, as when they associate the word “sea” with a wooden armchair. There’s even an unseen brother character, possibly apocryphal, who is said to lurk just outside the walls, until the father deems it necessary to invent a story in which he was murdered by a house cat that infiltrated the property.

What’s going on here? It’s fairly obvious that the parents are psychotic, even before we see their more, shall we say, extreme punishments. Yet Lanthimos clearly has more on his mind than simply showing a pair of nutjobs who Fate had the sordid sense of humor to allow to meet each other and breed. No, Dogtooth is a rather pointed commentary on the destructiveness of over-parenting. Throughout the film, the parents’ methods point to a desire to shelter their children from the harshness of the world while enforcing their authority over their offspring. But by isolating their children (almost) completely from the world’s evils, they have reduced them to little more than animals themselves, prone to violence against themselves and each other.

Moreover, at a certain point it’s clear that the parents are more interested in perpetuating the experiment than they are in turning their children into well-rounded adults, as most parents would desire. The key scene in the film comes after one of the daughters attacks the son in his sleep. When the father rushes into the room, the son accuses his sister, but she turns around and blames it on a much-feared cat, who invaded the room wielding a hammer. Obviously, the father (the only one who is permitted to travel into the outside world) knows this is a lie. But to admit as much would mean puncturing the elaborate lie he and his wife have worked so hard to create, so he lets it slide. Pretty telling, I’d say.

Of course, in a family so cut off from the outside world, any external influence that is introduced would be exaggerated, and this happens when one of the father’s female employees is permitted to visit the home regularly, ostensibly to provide the son an outlet for his sexual longings. The woman also sometimes smuggles in contraband items for the girls- first a headband, then some videotapes- that she trades for sexual favors. Eventually, watching movies like Rocky and Flashdance brings out a sense of rebellion in the eldest daughter, but Lanthimos refuses to make this rebellion cathartic for the audience. Sure, the girl begins to assert her independence, but after two decades of isolation she’s ill-prepared for it, and when she decides to break free, the results are harrowing.

The same could be said for the whole of Dogtooth. With only his second film, Lanthimos has created a film so unique in tone- call it “absurdist tragedy”- that it announces him as a formidably gifted filmmaker. Not only does Lanthimos tap vividly into a deep-seated parental fear- that our efforts to shelter and protect our children may be hurting them rather than helping- but he does it with such skill that Dogtooth is an exciting work of art even when it becomes borderline unbearable to watch. It’s a major achievement, and an early front-runner for my favorite film of the year.

Rating: 10 out of 10.

The Kids Are All Right (2010, Lisa Cholodenko)

2010-08-09T18:17:00.001-04:00

I honestly don’t feel like I have a lot to add to Mike D’Angelo’s spot-on assessment of Cholodenko’s latest, which might as well be titled Scenes From a Might-As-Well-Be-Called-Marriage (But For the Jackasses Who Voted For Proposition 8). The primary virtue of the film is the complexity with which its three grown-up characters are seen- Nic (Annette Bening), a serious doctor with a slight issue with alcohol; Jules (Julianne Moore), Nic’s life partner, a wishy-washy fortysomething perpetually between careers; and Paul (Mark Ruffalo), the anything-goes boho restaurant owner who, a few decades ago, donated the sperm that sired Nic and Jules’ children. Cholodenko and co-writer Stuart Blumberg, along with the cast, do a fine job establishing the dynamic of the family, in which the adults grapple with everyday problems- the waxing and waning of sexual passion, the encroachment of Nic’s job into the nighttime hours, and so on. All the while, the two of them work hard to bring up well-adjusted kids, albeit of a particularly tolerant variety, and shielding them from their own issues.

Naturally, Paul’s arrival on the scene is an irritant. The kids, Joni (Mia Wasikowska) and Laser [!] (Josh Hutcherson), have a right to be curious about the man who provided half their DNA, but likewise do Nic and Jules have the right to be uneasy at the presence of a father figure in the children’s lives after they’ve spent years creating a solid family without one. For his part, Paul is genuinely moved by the introduction of his kids into his life, and he does his best to insinuate himself into theirs, even as it’s clear that his presence isn’t exactly required. The Kids Are All Right handles the dynamic between these five characters with such keen observance and subtlety that it’s something of a letdown when Cholodenko and Blumberg have him embark on an affair with Jules.

That’s not to say that I’m with Jeffrey Wells in his vocal objection to the film’s final marginalization of Ruffalo, since in the end, the family situation must resolve itself, and all else is secondary. Nor was I taken aback by the turn of events that leads the ostensibly girl-loving Jules into Paul’s bed- after all, all three of Cholodenko’s films to date have featured characters whose sexual leanings are rather more fluid than they’d originally thought. It’s just that an affair between Jules and Paul feels too dramatically convenient- too easy an “out”- for this story. Maybe it’s just that I’ve never been a big “plot” guy (which might explain why I never sold a screenplay back when I was trying), but I found the relationship between Nic and Jules’ family and Paul to be interesting enough that the film’s need to turn him into a force working against the family’s happiness felt like a cop out to me. When a movie creates characters as rich as The Kids Are All Right does, I’d rather just see them bounce off each other than be hemmed in by a plot.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

Everyone Else (2009, Maren Ade)

2010-07-27T22:38:00.001-04:00

A subtler take on a prickly, Cassavetes-style relationship drama, Everyone Else examines the friction-filled love affair between Gitti (Birgit Minichmayr) and Chris (Lars Eidinger). As the film begins, the two are left on their own in sun-drenched Sardinia, where Chris, an architect, has been hired to do some improvements on a rich man’s vacation home. But while Chris makes a few stabs at work, most of his time is spent with Gitti as they try to enjoy some time on their own.

Soon, however, their personalities get in the way of their enjoyment. To begin with, Chris discovers via phone that he’s lost a prestigious competition, then hides the bad news from Gitti for several days, allowing his unexplained disappointment to cast a pall over their holiday. Then an encounter with one of Chris’ colleagues and his wife leads to a pair of awkward dinner parties in which Chris and Gitti’s issues come to the fore.

Ade, to her credit, never puts too fine a point on the frictions that exist within the relationship. Based on their actions in Everyone Else, it’s clear that Chris takes his artistic principles very seriously, but is somewhat spineless and eternally conscious of his self-image. On the other hand, Gitti is more impulse-driven, which gives her a kind of honesty that’s bracing in some circumstances but a hindrance in social situations, in which her inability to shrug off something she finds disagreeable leads to difficulties that might otherwise have been averted.

I won’t delve too deeply into the plot of Everyone Else, which is best experienced with as little advance knowledge as possible. However, it’s fascinating to see how Ade, ably assisted by Eidinger and Minichmayr, portray in detail the relationship between Chris and Gitti. We’ve all known couples like Chris and Gitti, in which their outward affections barely mask the hostility they feel deep down. There’s some truth to the old saying that opposites attract, but at the end of the day those opposites need to be compatible, personality-wise.

In most movies about relationships, love is depicted as the end result, and they all live happily every after. But even the happiest of couples- hi, honey!- knows that it’s nowhere near that simple, and for all couples who think in the long term, the make-or-break issue becomes not whether love is shared but rather whether the partners can make the relationship work. Everyone Else is about a borderline case- two people who may like (or even love) each other, but aren’t sure whether that’s enough, or should be. On that basis alone, it’s more realistic than most movies of its kind, and better to boot.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

Inception (2010, Christopher Nolan)

2010-07-27T22:37:00.000-04:00

There’s a certain paradox to the notion of Christopher Nolan making a “dream-film.” Nolan’s work has always been distinguished by a Swiss-watch precision and intricacy, and this springs from his writer’s need to focus on those aspects of the film that are relevant to the story. But dreams, as most anyone can tell you, aren’t so coherent. Often, the content of dreams is born less out of specific situations in one’s life than from deep-seated desires and anxieties which manifest themselves in strange ways. As a result, Nolan’s multi-level dream narrative doesn’t come off as a dive into the unconscious so much as a complex multi-player video game, in which the participants join in with an ostensibly unified purpose but are at the mercy of their own skill sets, personalities, and limitations.

But if Inception isn’t really convincing as an according-to-Hoyle dream film, it thrills on just about every other front. To begin with, Inception is a marvel of screenwriting structure, as Nolan uses the device of dreams-within-dreams-within-dreams to craft the cinematic equivalent of Russian nesting dolls. Even if the concrete goals of the story are fairly clear- the cranial crooks need to implant an idea, while team leader Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) has to come to grips with his wife’s death and find a way home to his kids- Nolan’s story is complex, as Cobb’s team must burrow deeper in their mark’s mind while fending off his built-in defenses.

That the film is never confusing is fairly amazing, and a testament to Nolan’s skill as a filmmaker. Rather than rushing through to the job itself, Nolan takes plenty of time to explain the rules of the game and to establish the different dream-worlds they will inhabit. So once he has to cross-cut between the different dream levels, we’re always sure where everyone is- no mean feat when you’ve got four or more levels to deal with at once. Additionally, Nolan’s screenplay employs a device in which time expands with every further level the characters visit- ten seconds of “real world” time equating to three minutes in the first level of dreaming, an hour in the second level, and so on. This leads to a riveting use of cross-cutting in which the team must wrap up its mission while, in the highest dream level, the team’s van ever-so-slowly plunges off a bridge into a river. If they don’t finish up before they hit the water, the mission will fail.

Inception is most successful as pure spectacle. Even if they don’t feel like dreams, there are images in the film that are astonishing, some of which appear in the trailers, others of which I won’t spoil here. Inception’s effects are always convincing and often transcendent, all the more so because they’re so perfectly integrated into the worlds of the characters. And if the so-called “human interest” comes up short here- wait, Nolan’s using the dead-wife plot again?- perhaps that’s because Nolan intends them not as fully functioning characters but as someone’s “projections.” Ah, yes- but whose? (That said, Tom Hardy rules, which is something I never imagined myself saying after his performance in Star Trek: Nemesis.)

One thing is clear, Inception is a movie that I’ll need to see more than once so I can watch it freed from my initial expectations. Now that I have a better idea of what Inception is and what it isn’t, I should be able to judge it more on its considerable merits. And now that I know what to expect, perhaps now I’ll be able to better determine what exactly Nolan’s game is. Because if my experiences with his work have taught me anything, it’s that there’s always more going on than Nolan lets on the first time around. Even if there’s not- well, it’s still pretty doggone awesome. And isn’t that enough?

Rating: 8 out of 10.

Winter's Bone (2010, Debra Granik)

2010-07-22T07:32:00.001-04:00

In many ways, the Ozarks world of Winter’s Bone harbors a way of life that seems to have changed little since the Great Depression. Oh sure, the cars and clothes are newer, and the local underground industry has switched from moonshine to crystal meth. But the mentality feels mostly the same- fierce territoriality, a strained-at-best relationship to the Law, and tenuous blood ties that only hold up to the point where they stop being useful. It’s a pocket of America that feels like a distant planet compared to the contemporary suburban sprawl, to say nothing of the big city, and it’s the kind of place where those who hail from elsewhere thank the heavens that they weren’t born, and where those who were born there rarely manage to escape.

Under the circumstances, it’s sort of amazing that Ree Dolly (played by Jennifer Lawrence) turned out so well. The offspring of a largely absent, ne’er-do-well father and a mostly catatonic mother, 17-year-old Ree is shouldering the responsibility for keeping her family going. She has dropped out of school to raise her younger brother and sister, but she motivates them to do their homework and quizzes them on their math and spelling. She assembles the meals primarily from what’s on hand and what can be hunted in the nearby forest. Money being tight, she could go around asking for charity, but she lives by the wisdom, “never ask for what ought to be offered.” It would be easy for her to fall in with the meth cookers in order to earn a living, but like the Dardenne brothers’ Rosetta before her, she won’t fall into the rut. And when she discovers that her family could get kicked out of their house after her dad has skipped bail, she’s not about to sit around and wait for the inevitable.

One of the wonders of Winter’s Bone, based on a novel by Daniel Woodrell, is how much it reveals about both its heroine and its setting not through tiresome exposition but through action. Granik and co-screenwriter Anne Rossellini don’t toss in so much as a throwaway line about Ree’s upbringing, but judging by her resourcefulness it’s clear that she had to figure most of life out for herself. In her hardscrabble way, Ree is the most heroic character I’ve seen at the movies all year, and Lawrence is a dynamo, less an up-and-comer angling for a career boost than a young performer with serious chops that were just waiting for be revealed. Lawrence isn’t playing a Hollywood hillbilly- Ree is a clever young woman whose circumstances have made her wise beyond her years, and she knows how to navigate a world that spits out weaker souls.

It’s a world that Granik portrays in such depth that Winter’s Bone never simply feels like a vehicle for its young star. The visual style of the film never falls into Southern Gothic clichés, but finely straddles the line between naturalism and noir. She then fills this world with a vivid gallery of supporting players, from the great John Hawkes as Ree’s uncle Teardrop, who reluctantly aids her on her quest, to Dale Dickey as Ree’s most intimidating obstacle, a local crime queen who has her fingers in lots of pies, all of them rotten. And throughout the film, Granik fills the frame with detail after vivid detail, from the crowds at the local cattle auction to the way a birthday party turns into a sing-along. It rang particularly true that the only option for young adults aside from crime is the military, which reels in many of its enlistees with the promise of money, travel, and the allure of potential heroism.

Winter’s Bone won the Dramatic Grand Jury Prize at Sundance this past year. But while this award’s pedigree often suggests bland off-Hollywood fare that’s low on legitimate entertainment value (i.e. Quinceañera and Personal Velocity), Winter’s Bone is never less than riveting. A tense thriller, a study of an unforgettable character, and as lived-in a portrait of the South than any film I’ve seen since The Apostle, Granik’s film is a major achievement, and one that will, I hope, kick off long and fruitful careers for both its director and leading lady.

Rating: 9 out of 10.

Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010, Banksy)

2010-07-19T22:55:00.001-04:00

At a time when some documentaries can’t even manage one compelling through-line, Exit Through the Gift Shop has three. The first and most obvious is its documenting of the vital but necessarily secretive world of street artists. For that, we mostly have Thierry Guetta to thank. Guetta, a Frenchman by birth and compulsive videographer by nature, fell into the orbit of the Los Angeles street art scene through a relative and proceeded to film many of the movement’s most prominent figures at work, including Shepard Fairey, creator of the iconic “Obama/Hope” graphic, and eventually Banksy, generally thought to be the world’s foremost street artist. If Exit Through the Gift Shop had no other redeeming qualities, it would be invaluable for the footage of these artists at work and as a demonstration of the surprising amount of effort, artistry, and risk they face to bring their work to the world, even if it will inevitably disappear within a day or so.

It’s Guetta’s efforts to film street art in action that led to his relationship with Banksy, which form’s the film’s second fascinating thread. Guetta, a genuine eccentric whose most obvious characteristic is his undying enthusiasm, fell in with Banksy and his crew and filmed a number of their works, from the “murder” of a London phone box to an anti-Guantanamo Bay piece he hung at Disneyland. But while Guetta won Banksy’s respect for failing to rat out his friend to Disneyland security, Guetta’s attempt to assemble his footage into a documentary was a disaster, and Banksy more or less hijacked the project by encouraging Guetta to go out and make art on his own.

It was this turn of events that finally led to the film’s third and perhaps most thought-provoking thread, in which Banksy uses both Guetta’s previously existing footage and footage taken of Guetta readying his art-world debut to ponder the nature of street art itself. Throughout Exit Through the Gift Shop, we are shown examples of how “street art” can contain artistry and ideas (as compared to old-school graffiti artists with their hasty aerosol scribblings). However, when Guetta is given a chance to make art of his own, he mostly just steals ideas from the artists he once followed. A kind of street-art Eve to Banksy’s Margo, Guetta fobs off his works on art fans primed for something new and edgy (but not informed enough to recognize that his art is derivative and uninspired), selling works for a total of more than a million dollars at his first public exhibition. Given the secondhand way Guetta achieved success by riding the coattails of his more established betters, it somehow seems fitting that he ended up getting commissioned by Madonna to design the cover of her latest greatest-hits album.

By the end of the film, Exit Through the Gift Shop has metamorphosed almost imperceptibly from a street-art primer to an often hilarious poisoned-pen letter to the man who gave this project its start. Some might argue that, by re-appropriating Guetta’s footage to his own ends, Banksy is no better than Guetta, but I’d say that the difference is that while Guetta is selling his secondhand goods to the world as his own vision, Banksy has basically given Guetta the latitude to hang himself by his own rope. Furthermore, Banksy’s efforts have turned Guetta’s formless video into something akin to a street art manifesto, reclaiming it from those pretenders who buy expensive photocopying equipment and employ dozens in their efforts to sell millions of dollars of “edgy” works in galleries, and returning it to the artists in the streets, who haunt Kinko’s by day and climb out on roofs and evade police by night for almost no monetary gain. True “street art” may not technically be legal, but thanks to Banksy- and to some extent, Guetta- it’s never looked nobler. And even if, as some have claimed, Exit Through the Gift Shop is a hoax, I’d say the points it makes stand either way.

Rating: 9 out of 10.

Father of My Children (2009, Mia Hansen-Løve)

2010-07-19T22:54:00.000-04:00

When we first meet Grégoire Canvel, the protagonist of Father of My Children, he’s juggling two cell phones in an attempt to resolve the problems of the day. Grégoire (played by Louis-Do de Lencquesaing) is a film producer who specializes in backing brilliant but prickly filmmakers most producers wouldn’t touch- a figure inspired by the late Humbert Balsan, who backed difficult projects by Lars Von Trier, Bela Tarr, Clare Denis, and others. Why does Grégoire do this? It’s partly because he cares more deeply about cinema than his colleagues, and partly because he sees himself as an underdog, fighting the good fight for art over the bottom line. But because of the nature of the job, virtually every day brings a new crisis, and when this is the case the only reasonable response is to deal with the immediate crisis, lest one go nuts from fear of what’s going to appear on the horizon.

Trouble is, Grégoire’s in-the-moment fixes are beginning to catch up with him. He’s running out of money, favors, and goodwill. Filmmakers still seek him out because they don’t know where else to turn, but how will he fund their work with no money? His dream is die, a massive crisis for with no available solution that doesn’t leave him hanging out to dry. A man whose livelihood has depended on his ability to find quick resolutions, Grégoire can only contemplate one possible way out. It’s often said that suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem, but in light of the decisions Grégoire has made throughout the film, it’s more or less inevitable that he’d end up that way.

Father of My Children would be pretty grim indeed if all it was was the story of one man’s downward spiral. However, Hansen-Løve has more on her mind than Grégoire Canvel’s demise. Instead, Canvel dies roughly halfway through the story, with the remaining duration devoted to his family’s behavior in the way of tragedy. Suicide may remove Grégoire’s need to deal with his problems, but the problems themselves remain, and his widow Sylvia (Chiara Caselli) does her best to manage the crises he left behind and resolve them in a way that honors his memory. Meanwhile, daughter Clemence (played by de Lencquesaing’s own daughter Alice) finds herself making discoveries both about her father and herself. Tragedy places both Sylvia and Clemence in a position where they must reveal parts of themselves they wouldn’t have needed to otherwise, and while they don’t always succeed in their new goals, they forge on in a way that Grégoire could not, and Hansen-Løve clearly admires their efforts. Father of My Children doesn’t exactly tell a new story, but it tells its story gracefully and great subtlety, which is just as rare a commodity as originality.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

Despicable Me (2010, Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud)

2010-07-12T20:28:00.001-04:00

One of the most enduring moviegoing grips is the old saw that Hollywood is running out of fresh ideas. And considering the lucrative kids’ market, it’s little wonder that most studios play it safe by rehashing hit properties for family audiences. So it’s admirable to see Universal, not usually known for animated fare, releasing a more or less original property like Despicable Me, especially at the height of the summer season. However, one of the disadvantages to starting up a potential franchise is that it requires a kind of media carpet-bombing to build awareness that isn’t necessary for stuff that has been around for years. Thus, while Disney and Pixar can get away with a few Toy Story 3 trailers that show everyone that, hey, Buzz and Woody are back in a new adventure, the folks behind Despicable Me have to work harder to get the word out. Anticipating this need, Universal released their first teaser last summer, and since then they’ve rolled out several other spots to play in theatres and on television. Consequently, much of the movie’s highlights have been spoiled by the advertising campaign. Sure, the studio has successfully marketed their movie into a family blockbuster, but it already feels like I’ve seen most of the good stuff after a single viewing.

Is this unfair? I suppose, especially since I usually try to confine my thoughts on a movie to what happens between the studio logo and the final MPAA rating card. But it’s also sort of inevitable, seeing as how I can’t exactly hook myself up to Dr. Mierzwiak’s memory-expunging machine before watching a movie (if I could, I’d use it to experience some of my favorites again for the first time). And strangely enough, going into the movie with most of the money moments pre-spoiled for me had a side effect of allowing me to better-appreciate the smaller sight gags, especially the background architectural stuff that otherwise might be lost. Additionally, the story’s inevitable turn toward the maudlin was far less grating to me here than in many other cases where it spoils the fresh hilarity. Nonetheless, Despicable Me isn’t good enough to overcome that feeling of déjà vu that was caused by its advertising campaign. Perhaps now that everyone is familiar with this movie, its large grosses will allow Universal to be more confident in what it has that they’ll be able to surprise us a little with the inevitable sequel.

Rating: 5 out of 10.

Cyrus (2010, Jay and Mark Duplass)

2010-07-12T20:27:00.000-04:00

Watching Cyrus, the latest from indie-world favorites the Duplass brothers, I was reminded of George Ratliff’s awesome Joshua, one of my favorite films of 2007. Not that the two movies were similar in look or feel, mind you, but both movies use popular genres to address anxieties that are fairly common. In Joshua, Ratliff tackled the worry faced by many fathers that the apple may fall disconcertingly far from the tree, while here the Duplasses take as their premise the anxiety faced by would-be stepfathers that they might not blend into their future families quite so smoothly as they had hoped. But the differences stop there, since Joshua is a sure-footed work from a filmmaker in full control, while Cyrus has been made by a pair of directing brothers who don’t seem to know where to progress from their promising idea.

The most obvious manifestation of the Duplasses’ tentativeness is their complete lack of facility with the camera. In their three films to date, the Duplass brothers have employed a handheld camera to underline their films’ ramshackle, lo-fi nature, but particularly in Cyrus, it seems they’ve confused this scruffiness with an honest-to-goodness aesthetic. Unfortunately, waving a digital camcorder around like a semi-distracted dad at his kids’ soccer game does not a style make. The Duplass brothers are convinced that nearly every moment that’s even remotely significant (and many that aren’t) needs to be punctuated by a quick zoom, but after one or two instances in the first couple of minutes this is merely annoying. There’s just no evidence that there’s an assured hand on the camera at any point during Cyrus, and the Duplasses would do well to consult the films of the Dardenne brothers or, more appropriately, Lukas Moodysson’s Together for tips on how to do it right.

This unease behind the camera wouldn’t be such an issue if the script was better- after all, last year’s Humpday, which starred one of the Duplass brothers, was no great shakes cinematically but was distinguished by its sharp screenplay. Unfortunately, once it lays down its premise, Cyrus isn’t thought through very well. Once the film has established the relationship between John (John C. Reilly) and Molly (Marisa Tomei) and introduced Cyrus (Jonah Hill), Molly son and semi-covert disrupter of their relationship, the Duplasses seem content to hit the obvious beats. There are many directions the Duplasses could have taken this premise, such as by steering it somewhere truly dark, or by making the rivalry between John and Cyrus subtle so that Molly couldn’t even detect it. Instead, the movie’s trajectory feels pretty formulaic, with the conflict coming to a boil, followed by a misunderstanding that briefly tears apart the couple, then some final-act redemption for Cyrus. It all feels too easy, as if in spite of the Duplasses’ ongoing commitment to grungy moviemaking is a mask for their desire to be comfortably Hollywood in their storytelling.

Trouble is, by aiming to bridge the gap between a no-budget Sundance favorite and a big-budget crowd-pleaser, Cyrus ends up scratching neither itch. It’s a shame, really, since the movie begins with a great deal of promise. The Duplasses wisely realized when making Cyrus that the movie wouldn’t have a prayer unless we were rooting for John and Molly’s relationship, and the movie’s opening does a fine job of making their courtship not only believable but highly sympathetic. Reilly has made a cottage industry of playing endearing schlubs, and just because he’s the obvious choice for this part doesn’t mean he’s not awesome at playing it. And Tomei is just as good in the role of a woman who’s finally dipping her toe back into the dating pool after spending most of her adult life raising her son (also, is it just me or is she getting hotter as she ages?). Even Hill is fine as Cyrus- the role is written more as a plot device than an actual character, but Hill’s performance goes beyond placid stillness and a thousand-yard stare to suggest some tumultuous goings-on below the surface. There’s so much that’s good in Cyrus that it’s a shame that the Duplass brothers don’t know what to do with it. Shame, really.

Rating: 5 out of 10.

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010, David Slade)

2010-07-07T23:01:00.000-04:00

Who is Bella Swan, really? I’m not talking about the role she plays in the Twilight saga. What I’m asking is who she is when she’s alone. Does she have any hobbies? Does she keep a journal, or doodle in a sketch pad, or enjoy going to hear live music? I only ask because there doesn’t seem to be much to her, at least not in the movies (I haven’t read the books, so I couldn’t make a judgment on that front). Hell, even the memorably antisocial Travis Bickle watched TV and went to porn theatres. To these eyes, Twilight heroine and lip-biting enthusiast Bella is perhaps the least compelling protagonist in a Hollywood blockbuster in many a moon.

This isn’t necessarily a deal-breaker, of course- I mean, Keanu Reeves’ Neo didn’t have a whole lot going on in his life either. But despite being boring as ass, it seems like nearly everyone Bella meets in the Twilight series thinks that she’s totally awesome. Her gaggle of human friends seem to be constantly seeking approval from her even though she doesn’t really hang out with them outside of school, and not one but two supernatural hotties are practically at each others’ throats (literally) to win her heart. Almost the entire Cullen family falls for her instantly, and the one who doesn’t (Nikki Reed’s Rosalie) resents her because of her own personal issues. Similarly, the Quileute tribe practically takes her as one of their own, even making her the first outsider to attend a tribal council meeting. Hell, she’s the reason for the climactic battle in Eclipse. Yet Bella herself hardly seems worth the trouble, and this makes much of Eclipse, and the franchise as a whole, pretty hard for me to swallow.

Of course, this wouldn’t bother me so much if Eclipse gave me a little more to think about. Has anyone else noticed that this movie just kind of sits there, story-wise? I’m not talking about incident, since I suppose plenty of stuff happens in Eclipse. I’m talking about plot. As any decent writing teacher will tell you, plot doesn’t simply mean incident, but rather a series of incidents leading to change. At the end of the day, what changes occur in Eclipse? Not many. Sure, Bella finally says yes to Edward’s proposals of marriage, and Victoria gets killed in the final battle, but for the most part Eclipse is prolonged buildup to Breaking Dawn. It’s pretty much all setup, with almost no surprises. And did this really need to be two-plus hours long? Not remotely.

It doesn’t help that it’s not especially well-made. Say what you will about New Moon, but at least it’s a good-looking movie, with interesting camera angles (I dig the overhead shots in the forest chase scene) and some well-deployed uses of color, particularly once the gang heads to Italy. By contrast, Eclipse is cinematic cold oatmeal- not offensive by any means, but just kind of blah. I’m not even talking about making things pretty, but director David Slade can’t even manage a single shot that intrigued me enough to want to know more. He’s so eager to shoot the onscreen action in closeup that it’s difficult to tell where the characters are in relation to each other, especially during the action scenes. He even botches the scene in which the army of “newborns” emerges from the water by not being patient enough to keep his camera on the surface of the water for a few seconds before the first head pops out.

Listen, I don’t want it to seem like I’m piling on a movie that’s not my cup of tea. There’s nothing in Eclipse that angered me or made me want to hurt myself like I did during Beverly Hills Chihuahua. Heck, there are even a few things I like, such as Billy Burke’s performance as Bella’s bachelor dad, who reacts to the endless drama in his daughter’s life with a sort of irritated resignation that’s always good for a chuckle. All in all, it’s a fairly inoffensive time-waster of a movie, one that’s of interest primarily to the legions of fans who clamor to see their favorite characters and scenes play out on the big screen. I certainly don’t begrudge them their love for Twilight- I have my soft spots too, and hey, at least they’re reading something. I might not be that keen on Eclipse, but then, I don’t really matter compared to all the people who are already counting down to Breaking Dawn next year, which will bring the hotly anticipated wedding of Bella and Edward. And I suppose I’ll watch that one too, not least because I’m genuinely curious what Edward will have to say to Bella now that he no longer has the option of proposing marriage ten times per day.

Rating: 4 out of 10.

Ratings for 2010 releases

2010-07-03T10:24:00.026-04:00

Here is my list of ratings for 2010 Muriel-eligible films I’ve seen thusfar. Click on the underlined titles for more detailed thoughts on them. The ratings scale is explained at right.

10 ratings
Dogtooth (Giorgos Lanthimos)

9 ratings
Exit Through the Gift Shop (Banksy)
The Social Network (David Fincher)
Winter’s Bone (Debra Granik)

8 ratings
Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky)
Carlos (Olivier Assayas)
Everyone Else (Maren Ade)
Father of My Children (Mia Hansen-Løve)
The Ghost Writer (Roman Polanski)
How Do You Know (James L. Brooks)
Inception (Christopher Nolan)
Never Let Me Go (Mark Romanek)
October Country (Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher)
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (Edgar Wright)
Somewhere (Sofia Coppola)
Toy Story 3 (Lee Unkrich)
True Grit (Joel and Ethan Coen)

7 ratings
Around a Small Mountain (Jacques Rivette)
The Fighter (David O. Russell)
Get Low (Aaron Schneider)
Hadewjich (Bruno Dumont)
Jackass 3D (Jeff Tremaine)
Let Me In (Matt Reeves)
Lourdes (Jessica Hausner)
Mother (Bong Joon-ho)
The Oath (Laura Poitras)
A Prophet (Jacques Audiard)
The Secret of Kells (Tomm Moore)
Shutter Island (Martin Scorsese)
Sweetgrass (Ilisa Barbash and Lucien Castaing-Taylor)
The Strange Case of Angelica (Manoel De Oliveira)
The Tillman Story (Amir Bar-Lev)
Valhalla Rising (Nicolas Winding Refn)
Vincere (Marco Bellocchio)
White Material (Claire Denis)
Wild Grass (Alain Resnais)

6 ratings
127 Hours (Danny Boyle)
And Everything Is Going Fine (Steven Soderbergh)
Animal Kingdom (David Michod)
Bluebeard (Catherine Breillat)
Blue Valentine (Derek Cianfrance)
Buried (Rodrigo Cortes)
Catfish (Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost)
Eccentricities of a Blond-Haired Girl (Manoel De Oliveira)
Enter the Void (Gaspar Noé)
Get Him to the Greek (Nicholas Stoller)
Greenberg (Noah Baumbach)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (David Yates)
How to Train Your Dragon (Dean DeBlois & Chris Sanders)
I Love You Phillip Morris (Glenn Ficarra and John Requa) {3}
Inside Job (Charles Ferguson)
Inspector Bellamy (Claude Chabrol)
The Karate Kid (Harald Zwart)
The Kids Are All Right (Lisa Cholodenko)
The King’s Speech (Tom Hooper)
Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’hoole (Zack Snyder)
Ondine (Neil Jordan)
Red Riding: In the Year of Our Lord 1980 (James Marsh)
Restrepo (Tim Hetherington and Sebastian Junger)
Smash His Camera (Leon Gast)
Soul Kitchen (Fatih Akin)
The Square (Nash Edgerton)
Tron: Legacy (Joseph Kosinski)
Vengeance (Johnnie To)

5 ratings
Alice in Wonderland (Tim Burton)
Amer (Helene Cattet and Bruno Forzani) {2}
The American (Anton Corbijn)
Cyrus (Jay and Mark Duplass)
Despicable Me (Pierre Coffin & Chris Renaud)
I Am Love (Luca Guadagnino)
I’m Still Here (Casey Affleck)
Iron Man 2 (Jon Favreau)
Marwencol (Jeff Malmberg)
Micmacs (Jean-Pierre Jeunet)
Please Give (Nicole Holofcener)
The Secret in Their Eyes (Juan Jose Campanella)
Splice (Vincenzo Natali)
Stone (John Curran) {3}
The Town (Ben Affleck)

4 ratings
Chloe (Atom Egoyan)
The Killer Inside Me (Michael Winterbottom) {3}
Life During Wartime (Todd Solondz)
RED (Robert Schwentke)
Red Riding: In the Year of Our Lord 1974 (James Marsh)
Red Riding: In the Year of Our Lord 1983 (Anand Tucker)
Tiny Furniture (Lena Dunham)
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (David Slade)

3 ratings

2 ratings
The Spy Next Door (Brian Levant)

1 ratings

0 ratings

Additionally, here’s a list of movies I’d like to see before filling out my Muriels ballot this year. Naturally, some are more urgent than others, though ideally I want to see them all if I have time (ha ha). So if anyone should happen to have a copy of one or more of these on DVD that he or she would be willing to let me borrow, I would be most appreciative.

Also, the number in braces {like so} represents my level of anticipation for this particular film. The number corresponds to my post about the movies I still “need to see” before I feel confident filling out this year’s Muriels ballot. Basically, {1} is for my most highly anticipated movies, and so on.

(30 Nov: In the interest of making this list rather less intimidating for me, I’ve pared it down somewhat. As always, if there’s anything you think I should add, let me know.)

Scheduled to come to Columbus:
Ne change rien (Pedro Costa) [Feb 11 @ Wex] {2}
The Illusionist (Sylvain Chomet) [Feb 11 @ Gateway] {2}

In town this week:
Another Year (Mike Leigh) [Feb 4 @ Drexel] {1}
Rabbit Hole (John Cameron Mitchell) [TBA @ Gateway] {3}

DVD release TBA:
Boxing Gym (Frederick Wiseman) {2}
The Concert (Radu Mihaileanu) {3}
Four Lions (Chris Morris) {3}
Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Inferno (Serge Bromberg and Ruxandra Medrea) {3}
Hideaway (Francois Ozon) {3}
Monsters (Gareth Edwards) {3}
My Dog Tulip (Paul and Sandra Forefinger) {3}
Neil Young Trunk Show (Jonathan Demme) {3}
Tamara Drewe (Stephen Frears) {3}
Unstoppable (Tony Scott) {3}

Vincere (2009, Marco Bellocchio)

2010-06-25T23:46:00.000-04:00

It’s rare to see a movie with an emotional pitch as high as Marco Bellocchio finds in Vincere. The later scenes in There Will Be Blood were awfully fevered, but even the preternaturally confident PTA didn’t attempt to sustain it throughout an entire film, although Magnolia came awfully close. So it’s sort of awe-inspiring to witness Bellocchio maintain such this tone throughout Vincere. From the central performances of Filippo Timi as the young Mussolini and the blistering Giovanna Mezzogiorno as his obsessed first mistress on down, there’s almost nothing subtle about this movie. But then, why should there be? Vincere story is a sad saga of real-life injustice, an impassioned woman who was steamrolled by a man’s ambition and buried by a system that would do anything to reward his success. Sure, she clearly had a few issues, but it doesn’t make it right that Il Duce would lock her up and take away their son simply to protect his image in ultra-Catholic Italy.

Compared to most biopics, Vincere’s script is extremely elliptical, hitting nothing but the key points of the Ida Dasler story to the extent that non-Italians might get lost at some point. Bellocchio careens from one big scene to the next with no down time (as Krusty the Klown might say, it’s the tightest 122 minutes in showbiz), resulting in a lack of depth to the story. Similarly, even if Bellocchio’s brio doesn’t flag, the story itself does, growing repetitive in the final hour. Really, there are only so many ways to liven up Ida screaming out the truth only to be slapped down by the authorities. But while I wasn’t particularly moved or fulfilled by Vincere, I found it fascinating all the same. Asked to choose a word to describe it, I’d have to pick “operatic”- indeed, a handful of the characters break out in song during the film- and I for one would be excited to see Bellocchio (or someone just as capable) tackle this story in opera form. As is, it’s not great, but it’s pretty awesome all the same.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

Toy Story 3 (2010, Lee Unkrich)

2010-06-24T23:06:00.000-04:00

In the interest of avoiding any long dry spells like I had between the Muriels and the White Elephant this year, I recently decided to post a few thoughts on every movie I see. Which is a great idea in theory, but sometimes it’s hard to think of anything insightful to add to the conversation. I’ve found myself in this situation with two new releases, Toy Story 3 and Please Give (or as I like to call it, Please Give the Vultures What They Want So They’ll Stop Hovering Already). In the case of Please Give, etc., I think that Craig Kennedy over at Living in Cinema has said it pretty well, and all that’s left for me to add is that despite my misgivings about the movie, it did satisfy my Rebecca Hall thing, so it was worth it for that anyway. Rating: 5 out of 10.

With Toy Story 3, it’s a little trickier, since my inability to think of something insightful to write has less to do with my thoughts neatly dovetailing with those of other (better-known) critics than the fact that it more or less scratches the itches the other two Toy Story movies scratch. Even more than most successful third installments, Toy Story 3 traffics in the viewers’ nostalgia for- and familiarity with- the previous films, to the point where in the opening scene I got a smile on my face when I heard the line, “I’ve got my dog, with a built-in force field!”, knowing exactly what would happen next. Like everything Pixar does, this reaction is completely intentional, since Toy Story 3 is about re-familiarizing us with the world of Andy and his beloved toys, all the better to ponder what’s going to happen when this world falls apart. Yes folks, Toy Story 3 is about moving on- saying goodbye, accepting one’s fate, and finally starting anew.

One of the most notable elements of the third (and, it would seem, final) Toy Story adventure is how much more Andy there is in the story. In the first two films, we caught glimpses of Andy and his relationship with the toys, but for the most part the toys were defined by their actions when he was absent- they established their own personalities and had their own adventures, but aside from Woody’s brief flirtation with museum-based immortality, they never acted in a way that ran contrary to their loyalty to their owner. So it’s a little startling to discover in Toy Story 3 that Andy becomes an active character in the story. Oh sure, most of the film is about Buzz and Woody and the gang and their trials and tribulations, but it’s also about Andy and how he has to come to terms with his feelings about the toys as he stands on the cusp of adulthood. As Andy grows up, is there still room for his old best pals?

What makes Toy Story 3 so effective from an emotional standpoint is that way it contrasts the trajectory of a human life (Andy’s, to be specific) with that of the toys. Whereas Andy grows up over the course of eighteen years and must then find his way in the world, a toy is more or less born to its appointed purpose. But once it’s fulfilled this purpose, what then? Toy Story 3 presents four options- going into storage until Andy “needs them again,” being donated to a day care where they’ll be played with but never belong to anyone, getting thrown away and eventually incinerated, and finally being given to another young child to be loved similarly to the way they were before. It’s a credit to the movie that it presents all four options with a surprising amount of emotional complexity, without ever feeling like Pixar is sacrificing entertainment value.

Considering how well thought out all four of these options happen to be, it’s almost disappointing that Unkrich and his team feel the need to introduce a villain into the story in the form of Lots ‘o’ Huggin’ Bear (voiced by Ned Beatty). Part of me wondered whether it might have been possible to follow the characters through these different potential fates without throwing a bad guy into the mix. However, these thoughts didn’t occur until well after the film was over. As I sat in that darkened theatre, all I could think of was how well I’d gotten to know- and like- these characters over the years. Most of all, I was grateful at getting the chance to spend a little more time with them. And in the end, it seems that Andy himself was grateful too.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

Final thought: What’s the deal with Ken? Unless the story requires it, the Toy Story movies have generally kept mum on the origins of the toys. But I can’t help but wonder how Ken got to the point at which we meet him. After all, here’s a Ken doll who, by his own admission, has never met a Barbie before. And while that’s certainly not impossible, it doesn’t seem likely. For one thing, the Sunnyside day care seems to depend on donations for its supply of toys. Which makes me wonder what kind of kid would have a Ken doll with a dream house and a full closet full of clothes but no Barbie. Ken can protest all he wants that he’s “not a girls’ toy,” but let’s face it- have you ever known someone to have a Ken independently of Barbie? What is Ken if not Barbie’s ultimate accessory, a hunky himbo to be dressed up while providing Barbie a male companion, all the better to reinforce the marriage fantasy that’s drummed into little girls’ heads from the cradle?

… Sorry about that. But it does make you think a bit, I suppose. I mean, it’s not like Ken has forgotten. He’s not a Buzz Lightyear, whose memory can be wiped clear with the touch of a cleverly hidden button. A much more likely scenario is that Ken came into the world at Sunnyside. For most characters in the Toy Story universe, life begins when their boxes are opened. Look at the way Buzz sprang to life in the first film only after Andy has ripped the package open and stood him on the bed. Similarly, in TS2 New Buzz comes “out of hypersleep” once the original Buzz opened up his box in an attempt to steal his tool belt. So while Ken has no doubt been on a shelf next to Barbie at some point, he wouldn’t have been aware of it until the box was actually opened. Which leads me to believe that rather than being bought and taken home and played with as part of the Barbie world, he was given directly to Sunnyside, clothes and dream house and all, probably due to a toy store having to get rid of excess Ken stuff.

Of course, the Prospector complicates matters. If the story of Stinky Pete’s box never having been opened (at least, not from the outside) is true, then that shoots a hole in the box-opening theory right there and it’s back to the drawing board for me. Still, it’s possible that his box was opened at some point for some reason or other, especially if he’s been around and harboring seething resentments for space toys for nearly half a century. And besides, aside from The Velveteen Rabbit’s concept of Nursery Magic, can you think of a better explanation?

I know, I know- I’ve thought entirely too much about this issue. And normally, I’d say that I’ve done more thinking about it than the filmmakers have. But this is Pixar, where everything is planned and thought through, and somebody along the line must have thrown out the question of how exactly Ken could have gone through several decades (according to IMDb he’s a mid-eighties model) without having encountered a Barbie. Even if they don’t come out and explain it in the movie, I’m sure they didn’t throw the idea out there without thinking it through. And isn’t it a testament to how much fun the film is, and how well thought out the Toy Story world has been so far, that I’m entertaining these thoughts at all?

Now, to figure out what’s up with the Potato Heads. I mean, their parts can operate independently, and Mr. Potato Head is about to walk around by using, at various point, a flour tortilla and a cucumber for a body. Are they Voltron-esque beings who are able to combine autonomous components to create a greater whole? And what happens when their parts get mixed up, as they’re bound to be at some point, with Mr.’s arms and/or eyes ending up on Mrs., and vice versa? Hey, there’s a gag for Toy Story 4…

The Karate Kid (2010, Harald Zwart)

2010-06-16T18:17:00.002-04:00

Am I strange for thinking this works better than the original? I watched John G. Avildsen’s 1984 take on this story not too long ago, and aside from the character of Mr. Miyagi, I found it pretty creaky. But its formula was pretty solid- new kid in town gets beaten up by martial-arts-practicing bullies, gets training from a mysterious master/handyman, and gets back at them in the ring. Granted, it’s not exactly a sophisticated story arc, which is part of the reason it’s more effective when the hero and his nemeses are in their early teens rather than nearing their high school graduation. Likewise, it’s more believable that these villains could be manipulated by their instructor, considering how hormone-addled and insecure boys tend to be at this age, grasping at anything that makes them feel tough and in control.

Of course, a drawback to the change in age is that it can be a little difficult to watch little Jaden Smith get the tar kicked out of him early in the movie, but Smith, small of build but full of attitude, is more believable as someone who would run afoul of bullies than affable goofball Ralph Macchio. It’s too soon to tell whether Smith is more than a talented child actor, but he’s definitely got presence to burn, not to mention his father’s natural charm and ease in front of the camera. His teacher, Mr. Han, lacks the self-aware eccentricities of Pat Morita’s Miyagi, but Jackie Chan’s uncharacteristically low-key performance is good nonetheless, and Chan and the filmmakers deserve credit for not simply trying to make him another Miyagi. And Taraji P. Henson doesn’t get much to do as Smith’s single mom, but she makes the character work.

Having transported the story to China, Karate Kid 2010’s titular martial art has been replaced by kung fu. And while the climactic fights are just as effective as those in the original- they’d be even better if not for the use of a distracting Jumbotron- Mr. Han’s unconventional teaching method of “hang up the jacket” just doesn’t have the same magic as “wax on, wax off” and “paint the fence.” But for the most part, the new Kid doesn’t screw up what worked in the original, while finding ways to change the formula mostly for the better. It’s not great art, but it’s solid entertainment, especially if you’ve got an age-appropriate kid who’ll respond to what the movie is selling. I’m surprised to find myself not so much dreading the inevitable sequel so much as wondering where they’ll take the franchise from here. Jaden Smith meets Tony Jaa in The Muay Thai Kid, anyone?

Rating: 6 out of 10.

Get Him to the Greek (2010, Nicholas Stoller)

2010-06-16T18:17:00.001-04:00

Russell Brand’s dissolute rock god Aldous Snow was one of the highlights of 2008’s Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and now with an expanded role he’s still pretty damned hilarious. But with the increased screen time has come a need to provide Aldous with a more rounded character, which means that instead of showing up now and then to make humping motions and glower lasciviously, he’s now grappling with daddy issues, relationship woes, and a relapse into drug addiction. Now, the scenes involving Snow’s issues aren’t bad per se. Trouble is, they don’t mesh particularly well with the funny stuff. When Stoller follows an hour or so of binge-drinking and late-night partying with scenes about Aldous learning to face up to his addiction and growing the hell up, it feels like someone laced my candy with vitamins so I wouldn’t feel so bad about gorging on empty calories. I know that we’re all supposed to have positive messages in our Hollywood movies, but when it comes to comedy, everything is forgivable just as long as it’s funny.

That said, Get Him to the Greek does mostly deliver the laughs. It’s not as consistently funny as Forgetting Sarah Marshall was, but the highs are much higher this time out. As the hapless studio flunky assigned to accompany Snow to a special concert, Jonah Hill takes what in other hands could have been a straight-man stick in the mud and makes him just as funny as Snow, albeit in a fussier sort of way. And while I wasn’t quite as taken with Sean Combs’ work as Hill’s vulgar, manipulative boss, I enjoyed the performance all the same, along with the rest of the supporting cast. And few can touch the Apatow team when it comes to great, out-of-nowhere cameos (there are two here, neither of which I’ll spoil for you). But the movie’s success rests primarily in Brand’s shoulders, and he delivers not only in the comedic set pieces but also in the straight scenes and even in the concert sequences. If nothing else, Brand’s performance is even more committed here than in Marshall, and while I’m not sure there’s much more to be done with Aldous, it’s a testament to Brand’s talent that he’s made it this far.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

The Secret in Their Eyes (2009, Juan Jose Campanella)

2010-06-16T18:15:00.000-04:00

Not hard to see how this ended up winning the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar last year, considering that its primary competition was the behind-bars brutality of The Prophet and the didactic scolding of Michael Haneke’s man’s-inhumanity-to-man illustration The White Ribbon. Compared to those two, The Secret in Their Eyes is pretty standard awards-bait, a gussied-up big-screen version of Law and Order in which the melancholy undertone doesn’t get in the way of the Very Bad Guy getting more or less what’s coming to him. If that sounds like damning with faint praise, then how else would you describe a serviceable murder mystery with relatively standard characterizations and bolstered by a handful of memorable scenes?

Of course, the word “memorable” doesn’t necessarily imply “awesome”, and there are few better recent examples of this than Secret’s much-ballyhooed centerpiece sequence, in which the hero and his hard-drinking sidekick (guess what happens to him?) finally track down the baddie at a football match. For some reason, Campanella felt it wise to shoot the entire scene in one extended “impossible” take, beginning with a helicopter shot into the stadium, then following the hero through the crowded bleachers, followed by an extended foot chase, after which the culprit jumps down onto the field and is eventually apprehended. Granted, it’s all very technically impressive how Campanella and his visual effects team put it together. The problem is that it’s so attention-grabbing that it took me right out of the movie.

Now, I’m a fan of long takes- seeing as how I’m a DePalma fanboy, this should go without saying. But in order for them to work, one of two things has to be true: either the camera movement looks and feels like something a camera could actually do, or the movie that surrounds the shot isn’t aspiring to realism. However, this shot failed both of these tests. It would be one thing if Campanella was making a frenzied movie-movie kind of thriller (a la DePalma), but most of The Secret in Their Eyes is relatively sedate stylistically. Therefore, as soon as the camera descended into the crowd of football fans, I became absorbed less in what was happening in the story than I was in how impressive the shot was. So, a lesson to all filmmakers with any sort of budget for special effects- just because you can create something snazzy doesn’t make it the right choice. As far as I’m concerned, that single shot brought my grade down one point by itself. And when the movie’s only pretty good to begin with, that makes a world of difference.

Rating: 5 out of 10.

Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (2009, Werner Herzog)

2009-12-31T00:26:00.002-05:00

I recently read an interview with Elliott Gould in which he described himself as a “jazz actor,” and watching Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, I realized that the same label could be applied to Nicolas Cage. In his signature roles, Cage doesn’t adopt a straightforward approach to characterization, but rather treats the script as the theme and proceeds to riff on the material he’s given. In many ways, Lt. Terence McDonagh is the ultimate Cage performance, full of unorthodox acting choices that work beautifully. Cage goes over the top all right, but it never feels like he’s simply hamming it up for the hell of it. Everything works in the context of the character, from his repeated dialogue quirks (dig his disbelieving chuckle whenever he mentions the henchman “G”) to the character’s outlandish behavior. It would be sort of unbearable if Cage appeared to be breaking a sweat, but he inhabits the character so fully that he seems completely in control even in the character's craziest moments.

Take the already legendary bit in which McDonagh turns up to interrogate an old woman, delivering a half-crazed monologue while shaving with an electric razor. On the one hand, it’s an almost surreal touch. But unlike, say, Marlon Brando offering George C. Scott a Milk Dud in The Formula, it makes a certain amount of sense- McDonagh’s been going nonstop for three days, and he’s become so blinkered by the case (and so strung-out on drugs) that he no longer has time to shave at home. And if it disorients the woman, so much the better.

Similarly, BL: PoCNO can be seen as a spiritual cousin to The Long Goodbye. Like Altman’s film (which- whaddya know- stars Gould), Herzog’s is a genre offering that’s not content to color inside the lines, inside using the framework to explore the confines of the formula. And if Herzog’s film isn’t the masterpiece that Altman’s is, it’s less because his material isn’t as good- although it’s hard to beat Chandler’s best novel for source material- but because the filmmakers’ approaches to genre exploration are difference. Altman exploded the detective mystery by transplanting a 1940s story to the alien world of 1970s Los Angeles, thereby exploring the contrasts of the genre conventions to the morality of the later period.

By contrast, Herzog couldn’t care less about the genre in which he works, treating the script as almost an excuse to chase after the things that really interest him- New Orleans post-Katrina, the implacability of nature (those iguanas!), and a hero so rotten that he poisons damn near everyone he encounters. Even psychoanalysis gets thrown out the window here- none of the Catholic guilt of the first film. Instead, Herzog and Cage make McDonagh a guy who has so much fun being bad that it becomes infectious. It’s this sense of fun that makes BL: PoCNO something of a tough nut to crack- it’s rare to find a movie that invites us to enjoy a character this irredeemable, after all. But in the hands of Herzog and Cage (two great surrealist tastes that taste great together), it’s more than a guilty pleasure- it’s one of the year’s most irresistible entertainments.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

Me and Orson Welles (2008, Richard Linklater)

2009-12-31T00:25:00.002-05:00

It’s become something of an awards-season cliché that actors are bound to get plenty of hype for playing famous people. Frankly, I’ve gotten a little tired of it- yeah, I suppose it’s neat to see, for example, Jaime Foxx playing Ray Charles, but once the initial charge wears off, the idea of one celebrity playing another feels like a thespian parlor trick designed to grab the attention of Oscar voters. However, Christian McKay’s justifiably feted turn as the late Mr. Welles is an exception- a full-blooded creation that transcends the requisite mimicry. McKay’s work is spellbinding, and his Welles is the rare interpretation of a historical figure that would be just as compelling a character had he not existed in real life.

Naturally, McKay has an advantage over bigger name stars in that he doesn’t carry the same amount of star baggage, which allows him to slip more easily into the role itself. But the brilliance of McKay’s performance is that he understands, deep down, that the image of Orson Welles that looms so imposingly over film and theatrical history was as much of a creation of Welles as it was the great man’s honest-to-goodness personality. His brash charm and titanic ego weren’t merely the results of his genius- they also allowed his genius to function in a society that can be brutal to those who stray too far afield from the safe and mediocre. Yes, Welles could be a bastard to those around him, even his closest collaborators. But who could possibly argue with the results?

Great man aside, Me & Orson Welles isn’t a great film about the theatre in the way that Topsy-Turvy is. Much of this is due to how blinkered its story is- young hero Richard (Zac Efron) is cast less than a week before opening night, and is sort of carried along by circumstance, with the assistance of plucky ambitious Sonja (Claire Danes) and the blessing of Welles himself. Welles casts a long shadow over this story, to the point where even his absence is defined by the fact that he’s not there. But while this isn’t particularly satisfying from a dramatic standpoint, it feels strangely right in light of the character of Welles. Throughout his career, the Welles mystique dominated practically everyone with whom he worked, although Joseph Cotten carved out a solid career on his own and John Houseman became an eminent figure in his own right after parting ways with his early associate. And needless to say, Richard and Sonja are hardly Cotten and Houseman, and they quickly find themselves swallowed up in Welles’ grand design.

But what I found particularly refreshing about Me & Orson Welles was that, for all his flaws, Welles is never made the villain. But then, Linklater has never been about bad guys. His potentially villainous characters are generally buffoons who need to be taken down a few pegs, such as Greg Kinnear in Bad News Bears, O’Bannion in Dazed and Confused. And if there’s one thing Welles isn’t, it’s a buffoon. He’s an egomaniac, a blowhard, a taskmaster, and a philanderer. But as Linklater’s forebear Renoir once put it, “everyone has his reasons.” Linklater is clearly on Welles’ side not just because of his genius and charm, but also because his shortcomings are part and parcel with his brilliance.

Also, I would be delinquent in my duties as a critic (albeit an unpaid non-pro version of one) were I not to mention the film’s other great supporting performance, courtesy of Zoe Kazan. Admittedly, the scenes involving Welles are the centerpiece of the film, and the primary reason for seeing it. However, Kazan is so good as Gretta, an aspiring writer with whom Richard has an ongoing flirtation throughout the film, that her scenes have a charge all their own. Gretta is the only major character in the film who exists independently of Welles, and in the hands of a lesser actress these scenes would feel like half-hearted stabs at a romantic subplot. But Gretta is no obligatory love interest, and Kazan’s presence transforms her scenes with Efron into a refreshing reprieve from the intrigues of the Mercury Theatre. Kazan is what is so often referred to as an “unconventional beauty,” but she’s warmer and more genuine than any number of cookie-cutter starlets, with a smile that’s absolutely glowing. In her own luminous way, Kazan gives just as much of a star-making performance as McKay does.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

Antichrist (2009, Lars Von Trier)

2009-12-07T22:38:00.001-05:00

One of the challenges of reviewing a movie as visceral as Antichrist is that it’s difficult to see past the initial impact to the headier stuff on display. I saw Antichrist for the first time on Friday night, and since then I’ve been turning it over in my head, trying to puzzle out what Von Trier is doing with the film. However, my more immediate reaction to it was closer to stunned silence at the sheer force of the filmmaking and the often-shocking imagery. Make no mistake- Antichrist hits, and hits hard.

“If nothing else, Antichrist is the best horror movie in years,” I told a friend the other day, and I stand by this statement. With all his aspirations to artistry, Antichrist is first and foremost a horror movie, and a highly effective one (read: scary) at that. Much like Kubrick’s take on The Shining, most of the horror in Antichrist comes not from the explosion of violence and gore that comes in the last couple of reels, but rather from the creeping dread in the build-up to that point. And I do mean “creeping”- Von Trier’s use of extreme slow-motion in a number of sequences in Antichrist is nothing short of stunning, giving already some already gorgeous images a hypnotic effect while burrowing themselves into your consciousness. If I had trouble sleeping the night after I saw Antichrist, it’s these shots that were to blame.

Thankfully, Antichrist gave me plenty to think about during my sleepless hours. The best horror films tend to smuggle in their ideas as subtext, but Von Trier foregrounds his here in a way few horror filmmakers have. Antichrist is a thicket of themes and theses, tackling topics ranging from the historical repression of female sexuality to the sinister qualities of the natural world. In addition, Von Trier the limits of psychology and psychotherapy, examines the grief process, and the dissolution of a loving marriage in its wake. All this set against the portrayal of a world seemingly ruled over by a deity who appears to be anything but benevolent. Pretty heady stuff, I’d say.

Even more than most of Von Trier’s films, Antichrist has been a target for plenty of criticism from those who believe the filmmaker to be an inveterate misogynist. But while the film eventually becomes the story of a woman who goes nuts and subjects her husband to unspeakable violence, I don’t think it’s as simple as it appears to be at first glance. After all, She (Charlotte Gainsbourg, fierce and fearless) is still reeling from the accidental death of her son, which Von Trier shows in agonizing detail in the film’s opening scene. And rather than trusting her treatment to the medical establishment, her therapist husband (Willem Dafoe) takes on the case himself. He then proceeds to fully embrace his therapist role, making himself emotionally unavailable at precisely the time she needs a loving husband most. What’s more, his therapy techniques are dubious at best, consisting of Freudian psychobabble and face-your-fears platitudes, the latter leading them to their cabin in the woods (called “Eden”), which she harbors fears for even under ideal circumstances.

So yeah, He probably isn’t helping her sanity much. But just as important is Von Trier’s acknowledgement of the longstanding male fear of female sexuality, which have manifested themselves in alarming ways throughout the centuries. Before her son’s death, She was working on a graduate theses that examined these historical practices, but in light of the circumstances surrounding the boy’s accident- She was making love to her husband when the boy escaped his crib, and indeed she is shown having an orgasm just as he plunges to his death- she would understandably connect her carnal urges to destruction. So considering her extreme guilt coupled with her overwhelming grief, and exacerbated by the forbidding surroundings of Eden, the violence She displays in the final reels of Antichrist isn’t much of a stretch for the story.

This is made explicit in what is perhaps the film’s most notorious shot, in which She takes a pair of scissors to herself and snips off her clitoris. In other hands- for example, Takashi Miike at his laziest- this might have come across as an empty shock tactic. However, in the context of Antichrist, it’s anything but. Having already supplied us with images of historical persecution of women- torture, executions, and the like- von Trier uses this shot to summon up an image of contemporary persecution, one practiced among cultures that are still suspicious of the female sex. That Antichrist shows a woman doing it to herself is especially horrifying, since She has become so afraid of the destructive power of her sex that she feels the need to remove it altogether.

Even setting aside the film’s rather politically-incorrect views on gender, Antichrist is a von Trier film through and through. He’s arrogance in dealing with his wife’s mental health is similar to that displayed by Tom Edison in Dogville and Grace in Manderlay. And the use of hypnosis as a key plot point hearkens back to von Trier’s earlier work, from the narration of both The Element of Crime and Europa to the harrowing final scene of Epidemic. And like many von Trier films, Antichrist is a portrait of a social institution- a marriage, in this case- that is sent into disarray by the addition (or subtraction) of a key ingredient. After little Nick falls from the balcony, nothing can be put back together again, until, yes, “chaos reigns.”

Alas, Antichrist isn’t one of von Trier’s best films. For one thing, von Trier doesn’t quite manage to make his multitude of ideas cohere in an interesting (what does She’s sexual psychosis have to do with her phobia of the outdoors, for example?). Likewise, while some of the film’s more infamous elements- such as the aforementioned self-mutilation- make sense thematically, others seem to be included primarily for shock value, lending credence to the naysayers who dismiss von Trier as a mere provocateur. All the same, Antichrist is an important film, one for critics and cinephiles to dismiss at their peril. Von Trier claims that he made the film while suffering through a bout of severe depression, and the frayed-nerve filmmaking on display here is clearly born out of a very dark and personal place. For all its flaws, Antichrist feels like a key work for its maker, and I suspect that its reputation will only grow once the shock has worn off.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

2009 Releases by Rating

2009-12-04T00:01:00.001-05:00

10 ratings:
Up (Pete Docter)

9 ratings:
Fantastic Mr. Fox (Wes Anderson)
The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow)
Inglourious Basterds (Quentin Tarantino)
Lorna’s Silence (Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne)

8 ratings:
Antichrist (Lars von Trier)
The Brothers Bloom (Rian Johnson)
Duplicity (Tony Gilroy)
Julia (Erick Zonca)
Summer Hours (Olivier Assayas)
Tetro (Francis Ford Coppola)
Two Lovers (James Gray)
You, the Living (Roy Andersson)

7 ratings:
Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (Phil Lord and Chris Miller)
Coraline (Henry Selick)
Crank 2: High Voltage (Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor)
Disney’s A Christmas Carol (Robert Zemeckis)
Drag Me to Hell (Sam Raimi)
Fados (Carlos Saura)
Goodbye Solo (Ramin Bahrani)
The Headless Woman (Lucrecia Martel)
Hunger (Steve McQueen)
In the Loop (Armando Iannucci)
The Informant! (Steven Soderbergh)
Observe and Report (Jody Hill)
Ponyo (Hayao Miyazaki)
Revanche (Götz Spielmann)

6 ratings:
(500) Days of Summer (Mark Webb)
24 City (Jia Zhang-ke)
Adoration (Atom Egoyan)
The Beaches of Agnes (Agnes Varda)
District 9 (Neill Blomkamp)
The Girlfriend Experience (Steven Soderbergh)
Gomorrah (Matteo Garrone)
Land of the Lost (Brad Silberling)
The Limits of Control (Jim Jarmusch)
Paranormal Activity (Oren Peli)
Public Enemies (Michael Mann)
Star Trek (JJ Abrams)
Sugar (Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden)
Tony Manero (Pablo Larrain)
Treeless Mountain (So Yong Kim)
Tulpan (Sergey Dvortsevoy)
The Twilight Saga: New Moon (Chris Weitz)
Where the Wild Things Are (Spike Jonze)
Zombieland (Ruben Fleischer)

5 ratings:
17 Again (Burr Steers)
Angels and Demons (Ron Howard)
Away We Go (Sam Mendes)
Brüno (Larry Charles)
Capitalism: A Love Story (Michael Moore)
An Education (Lone Scherfig)
Funny People (Judd Apatow)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (David Yates)
Hotel for Dogs (Thor Freudenthal)
Inkheart (Iain Softley)
Monsters vs. Aliens (Rob Letterman and Conrad Vernon)
A Serious Man (Joel and Ethan Coen)
Three Monkeys (Nuri Bilge Ceylan)
Tyson (James Toback)
Watchmen (Zack Snyder)
Whatever Works (Woody Allen)

4 ratings:
Big Man Japan (Hitoshi Matsumoto)
Extract (Mike Judge)
G-Force (Hoyt Yeatman)
Taking Woodstock (Ang Lee)

0 through 3 ratings:
None… yet.

Still need to see:
35 Shots of Rum (Claire Denis)
Antichrist (Lars Von Trier) [opening 4 Dec]
Anvil!: The Story of Anvil (Sacha Gervasi) [now on DVD]
Avatar (James Cameron)
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans (Werner Herzog)
Big Fan (Robert Siegel)
Black Dynamite (Scott Sanders)
Bright Star (Jane Campion)
Broken Embraces (Pedro Almodovar)
Bronson (Nicolas Winding Refn)
La Danse: The Paris Opera Ballet (Frederick Wiseman) [coming in February]
An Education (Lone Scherfig) [now playing]
Home (Ursula Meier)
Humpday (Lynn Shelton) [now on DVD]
The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus (Terry Gilliam)
Import Export (Ulrich Seidl)
Invictus (Clint Eastwood)
Lake Tahoe (Fernando Eimbcke) [now on DVD]
The Lovely Bones (Peter Jackson)
Mammoth (Lukas Moodysson)
Me and Orson Welles (Richard Linklater) [opening 18 Dec]
Night and Day (Hong Sang-soo)
Passing Strange: The Movie (Spike Lee)
Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire (Lee Daniels) [now playing]
Red Cliff (John Woo)
Rembrandt’s J’Accuse! (Peter Greenaway) [now on DVD]
The Road (John Hillcoat)
A Single Man (Tom Ford)
Still Walking (Hirokazu Kore-eda)
Storm (Hans-Christian Schmid)
The Sun (Aleksandr Sokurov)
Thirst (Chan-wook Park) [now on DVD]
Up in the Air (Jason Reitman]
The White Ribbon (Michael Haneke)
Wild Grass (Alain Resnais)
World’s Greatest Dad (Bobcat Goldthwait)

The Silence of Lorna (2008, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne)

2009-11-16T18:53:00.001-05:00

Sometimes, even the greatest of artists can become the victims of sky-high expectations. Take the Dardenne brothers, Jean-Pierre and Luc, whose latest film Lorna’s Silence, despite almost universally positive reviews, has been given a curiously muted reception. “Ho-hum,” many critics seem to be saying. “Another hardscrabble, socially-conscious bit of cinema vérité from the Dardennes.” That’s a shame, really- sure, it’s interesting to see when talented filmmakers tackle many different genres and styles (it’s why Soderbergh is fun to watch even when he’s spinning his wheels). But with the Dardennes working at such a consistently high level, it’s churlish to complain that they just keep on cranking out another great Dardenne brothers movie every three years or so instead. Truth be told, it sounds a little like bitching that Dickens never wrote a book about giant killer robots- pointless and borderline absurd.

The Dickens comparison isn’t an idle one. Like Dickens, the Dardennes specialize in stories about criminals and the lower classes (come to think, wouldn’t you love to see them tackle a non-Tradition-of-Quality Dickens adaptation?). And like Dickens, the ability to tell a good story has always been the backbone of their work, even more so than their aforementioned social consciousness and the dual undertones of Christian spirituality and Socialist politics that have always been central to their style. The Dardennes’ gifts for storytelling don’t manifest themselves in plot gimmickry, but a knack for immersing the audience in the world of their characters, and allowing their narratives to progress in interesting directions not through the grinding gears of the plot machinery but through the decisions and limitations of their characters. More than most filmmakers, the Dardenne brothers use their story premises as a starting point rather than the rail on which the film rides- perhaps this is why I find Rosetta to be the least of their post-La Promesse works, since it’s the one that feels most beholden to its premise. By contrast, Lorna’s Silence finds their gifts in full flower.

SPOILERS follow, naturally.

In their previous film The Child, the Dardennes told the story of a young man who viewed his newborn baby merely as a meal ticket, going so far as selling him to an adoption racket for quick cash. In Lorna’s Silence, nearly all of the characters operate on that same level of morality. In their eyes, no one has any worth aside from the many they can bring in. The title character, an Albanian immigrant played by Arta Dobroshi, is part of a marriage racket in which Eastern Europeans can receive Belgian citizenship. Lorna is married to a junkie named Claudy (Dardennes regular Jérémie Rénier), who has been paid to marry and will be paid to divorce. After the divorce, Lorna will in turn be paid to marry, then divorce, a Russian, before she’s free to marry her longtime boyfriend. Of course, as the racket’s ringleader Fabio (Fabrizio Rongione, another Dardennes favorite) states, if Claudy was to kill himself by overdosing, he wouldn’t have to be paid off, right?

You see how it goes. But let me just point out how deftly the Dardennes handle the theme of a person’s worth in the story. In lesser hands, this theme would be harped upon in dialogue throughout the film, until the good people learned a lesson in what really matters in life and the bad people were punished for their greed. In The Silence of Lorna, no one is let off the hook. Lorna is an opportunist whose primary concern is her own monetary gain, and her beloved boyfriend Sokol is happy to play along. All the while, everyone uses poor Claudy, who they simply refer to as “the junkie.” Of course, when Claudy decides to clean himself up- for real this time- that isn’t part of the plan.
It’s Claudy’s character arc and eventual fate that lead to my favorite moment in the film, as well as perhaps its best example of its makers’ storytelling gifts. After establishing the deep-seated need of this most pathetic of junkies (without a hypodermic in sight, might I add), the Dardennes and Rénier manage to find a way for him to pull himself out of his addiction. In turn, the sincerity of his efforts have managed to break through the defenses of his de facto wife, who at first decides to help him recover in exchange for a divorce, but who eventually begins to feel for her him. Unlike the other men in her life, Claudy doesn’t see Lorna as a meal ticket (he even trusts her to hold his money rather than clutching it greedily as the others do), and in turn she learns to respect enough to call him by name rather than simply as “the junkie.” If love doesn’t exactly blossom, a kind of need does, based on his desire to get better and her craving to be needed for more than just her money.

In Claudy’s final scene, he and Lorna visit a general store when he sees a used bike for sale. Figuring he needs something to occupy his days so he won’t fall off the wagon, he buys the bike and decides to ride around town. As he pedals away, Lorna briefly chases him as a smile brightens her face, sharing in one of her husband’s rare moments of triumph. Then there’s a cut, and we see Lorna alone, solemn, gathering some of Claudy’s clothes in a plastic bag. It isn’t until she arrives at the morgue that we discover that he is dead, and not until still later that we’re told that Fabio arranged for him to die in an overdose. At first glance, this decision by the Dardennes might sound callous, as if they thought Claudy wasn’t worthy of an onscreen death. But in practice, it’s both bold and incredibly merciful. Rather than having our last image of Claudy be as a screaming victim or a cold corpse on a table, they instead show him riding off into the sunset, for one at peace with himself.

Alas, Lorna doesn’t get this same kind of happy ending. The mercy she showed to Claudy doesn’t simply disappear with his death, and she begins to believe that she’s carrying Claudy’s child, despite all evidence to the contrary. Unfortunately, none of her mercy is returned to her. After the deal with the Russian falls through (due to Lorna’s “hysterical” pregnancy) Fabio decides to have Lorna killed, a decision that’s not half as harrowing as the one where Fabio and Sokol divide up Lorna’s money while she watches, leaving her a measly 100 Euro. I guess that when all you’re worth to others can be counted in money, that money’s going to dry up sooner or later, and then what are you left with?

At least one critic I’ve read has labeled Lorna’s Silence misogynistic in part because of Lorna’s mistaken belief that she’s pregnant. However, I don’t share this opinion. For one thing, false pregnancy (also known as pseudocyesis) is hardly uncommon. But in the context of the film, I believe that this plot development makes perfect sense. Caring for Claudy satisfied Lorna’s latent need to be needed, and this need gives her something to live for other than just money. At the end of the film, Lorna has to flee Fabio and hide out in a cabin in the woods, with almost no money, no friends, and no prospects. If she’s found, she’ll certainly be arrested or killed. But she clings to her hope, misguided though it may be. As a result, the final scene is unbearably sad- not only because we know the truth, but also because she doesn’t. It’s a heartbreaking ending, and a perfect one. I wouldn’t expect any less from the Dardenne brothers, and while that might come back to bite me in the ass later, I certainly won’t whine about it now.

Rating: 9 out of 10.

Funny People (2009, Judd Apatow)

2009-08-03T18:42:00.001-04:00

Judd Apatow has worked in comedy since he was a teenager, and his knowledge of the business comes through in the details of his latest film, Funny People. The movie is full of small touches that are completely convincing, and were no doubt inspired by the experiences of Apatow and his cast of comic ringers. For example, look at the scene in which Seth Rogen, playing a struggling stand-up who gets hired as a writer by superstar Adam Sandler, is pitching his new jokes to the boss- instead of laughing at the material, Sandler simply nods and says, “yeah, that’s funny,” thinking less about his personal thoughts on the joke than about how he can get a laugh out of it. Funny People is best in moments like these, and the movie is full of them- like the beatific smugness of a young comic who has landed the lead in a crap sitcom, or an up-and-comer who posts videos of himself frolicking with cute kittens to generate traffic for his blog.

Unfortunately, the movie as a whole doesn’t live up to these details. Funny People has enough storylines and ideas for three or four movies, but Apatow can’t find a way to bring them together into one. Apatow’s directing style has always been loose, but when you’re trying to cover as much ground as he does here, some discipline is required, but Apatow just can’t bring himself to impose a structure on his material. Instead, he lets his cast riff, sometimes to hilarious ends, but more often leading to scenes that flail around on the screen in search of a purpose or a payoff. This is especially damaging to the film’s less overtly funny scenes, in which the lack of discipline dulls the impact they might otherwise have had. The result is a 2 ½ hour movie that seems to drag on endlessly, especially in its second half.

Not helping matters is Sandler’s presence in one of the film’s two central roles (Rogen plays the other). Sandler equips himself fairly well in the first hour of so of the movie, in which he plays George Simmons, an emotionally stunted big-screen superstar who is singularly unequipped to deal with the news that he’s contracted a terminal disease. In interviews, Apatow has said that he wanted to make a movie about someone who learns all the wrong lessons from his brush with death, and in the first half of the movie Sandler holds up his end of the bargain, playing the sort of blinkered asshole whose first impulse when faced with his own mortality is to do stand-up comedy routines about how much his fans will miss him when he’s gone. His private life consists primarily of torturing his new assistant/joke writer/flunky Ira (Rogen), who is the closest thing to a friend that he has.

These early scenes work fairly well since Sandler can do the selfish prick thing fairly well, since his lack of expressiveness dovetails perfectly with a comedian’s need to distance himself from sincere emotion. However, he’s not up to the later scenes in the film, in which he pays a visit to Laura, “the one that got away,” played by Leslie Mann. In these scenes, George and Laura are revealed to still harbor feelings for each other, but I wasn’t buying it. For one thing, I didn’t believe that Laura would be willing to leave a comfortable life (albeit with a loutish and allegedly unfaithful husband played by Eric Bana) for a guy who by all accounts treated her pretty shabbily. But just as unfathomable is the idea that George would consider- even briefly- the possibility of settling down. Sandler is just too much of an emotional blank to hint at the reserves of emotion behind a guy who spends his time telling dick jokes and sleeping with fans who want him to do silly voices in mid-hump. It’s not as big of a stretch as, say, his performance as the world-class chef and all-around snuggly-bear who inflames Paz Vega’s passions in Spanglish, but still- the colors Sandler needs for his scenes with Laura just aren’t to be found in his box of acting Crayolas.

But even without Sandler, the Laura scenes feel fairly problematic. Compared to the scenes of George’s lonely life and the rivalry between Ira and his friends, life with Laura is depicted to be an almost over-the-top take on domestic bliss. This would be fine, except for the fact that Laura is played by Apatow’s real-life wife Leslie Mann and her children are played by their real-life daughters Maude and Iris, who get ample opportunity to tell jokes and act cute for the camera. I don’t begrudge Apatow his happy family life, but in depicting the transcendent awesomeness of his wife and kids it does feel like he’s showing off. I mean, the “peanut butter game?” Really? Really?

Taken as a whole, Funny People is just too messy and problematic to be considered successful. However, there are enough little bits of goodness in it that it can’t be ignored. Chief among these is Rogen, who once again reveals unexpected chops as an actor. Playing a character far removed from his slow-burn psycho in Observe and Report, Rogen makes Ira an essentially good guy who is trying to make it in Hollywood but doesn’t quite have the stomach for it. At one point, Ira has to screw over his friend to further his career, but while it’s the kind of fairly small thing that surely happens all the time in the business, it’s apparent that Ira is conflicted about it, and Rogen suggests this without going over the top. Apatow clearly has affection for Ira, but he also knows that the comedy scene is full of guys like him, who haunt open-mic nights and grasp for any chance they can find to make a name for themselves. We can’t all be George Simmons, Apatow seems to be saying, but that’s probably a good thing. Of course, that’s not much comfort to Ira.

Rating: 5 out of 10.

Up (2009, Pete Docter and Bob Peterson)

2009-06-13T13:36:00.001-04:00

Much has been written about how Pixar has become the surest thing in Hollywood. But with this level of consistency- even Cars, which was a low point only by Pixar’s lofty standards- has come a certain level of shrugging from the critical establishment. “Ho-hum,” we joke. “Another awesome Pixar release. What a shocker.” This is, to say the least, unfair, not least because although the element of surprise has long given way to an almost ironclad reliability, the movies have actually become more diverse in the past few years. The early Pixar releases stuck to a dependable formula- two buddies save the day, usually backed by a ragtag group of wacky misfits- ever since The Incredibles, Pixar’s features have grown increasingly unique. Incredibles’ colorful animation covered for the fact that it was a superior superhero movie, Ratatouille was a French-inflected foodie drama about an unlikely genius, and WALL*E was a cross between a silent film about a single-minded robot and the outer-space epic Jacques Tati never got around to making. And Pixar’s growth continues unabated with their latest, Up, which to these eyes may be their best film yet.

If nothing else, Up would be notable as the first animated film to get me choked up in a decade, when I was similarly affected by The Iron Giant, directed by future Pixar favorite Brad Bird. Even more impressive is that this happened within the first ten minutes of the film, before the story proper has barely begun- we meet the young Carl Fredricksen as a child and see him befriend future wife Ellie through their mutual love for rip-roaring adventure. Then the film cuts to a montage of their lives together- the idealistic early years (marriage, buying the old home that once served as their clubhouse, saving for their dream vacation to South America) followed by the onset of harsher realities (digging into the vacation fund for mundane reasons, going to work, growing old), set to Michael Giacchino’s lovely musical theme. By the time Ellie passes away- leaving Carl sitting alone on the altar of the church where they were first married- Up had worked its magic on me. In retrospect, I liked that directors Pete Docter and Bob Peterson weren’t sticking to the traditional rules of family movies, which normally dictate that only the bad guys are allowed to die. But in the moment, all I could do was sit back and let the movie work on me, and marveled that, for once, a montage actually worked the way it should.

When I say that Up is old fashioned, I mean that as a compliment. Make no mistake, Pixar’s wizards have spared no expense to provide cutting-edge animation, even going to far as to cave into the the market’s (and Disney’s) demands to release the film in 3D in select venues. But its most notable virtues are of the old-school variety. As with WALL*E last year, Up tells its story primarily through its visuals and sound effects rather than relying on copious spoken exposition. Of course, it should go without saying that Up is gorgeous to look at- the South American jungle is rendered in a vivid color palette, and even the interiors of the film are filled with wonders great (the cavernous dirigible Carl encounters on his journeys) and small. But the visual style of the film goes beyond simple aesthetic beauty. This is most evident in the film’s use of circles and squares, which can be seen first in the respective character designs of Carl and Ellie. Carl, with his blocky head and lantern jaw, contrasts with the more casual and easygoing Ellie, whose face is rounder and softer. And this pattern continues throughout the film- in Russell (Jordan Nagai), the pudgy Wilderness Survival Scout who becomes Carl’s inadvertent traveling buddy, in the contrast between the friendly dog Dug (the movie’s breakout supporting character) and his more ferocious canine cohorts, even in touches as small as the picture frames in Carl’s home.

Of course, none of this would matter if Up failed in the narrative sense. Thankfully, the film never lapses into the familiar formulas beloved of so many big-budget animated films. As Ebert likes to say, it doesn’t have a plot, but a story- more specifically, a fantastical adventure yarn. One of the advantages of the animation medium is that the filmmakers can apply the long-established laws of “cartoon physics,” in which the rules don’t have to be equivalent to real life just as long as they remain consistent in the film’s world. Up creates a delightful world in which houses can take flight if one uses enough helium balloons, and a young boy can be jostled and whipped around with no lasting damage done (following a particularly perilous adventure, Russell giddily proclaims, “that was cool!”). Naturally, certain rules still apply, but they’re for comic effect as much as anything else, as when Carl faces off against his childhood hero, the adventurer-gone-to-seed Charles Muntz (Christopher Plummer), and the fight is interrupted by both characters’ back problems. There’s plenty of action in Up, but lots of comedy too, both in between the action scenes and during them as well. The film’s priceless comedy bits are a reminder that Docter also helmed Pixar’s best comedy to date, 2001’s Monsters, Inc. But the humor is never simply silly for silly's sake, but is grounded in the film's world. For example, Dug and friends aren't furry people, but dogs who have been given the gift of human speech, and they're funny not because they talk but because of what they say.

Seeing the movie a second time recently, I realized that many of Up’s effects are achieved through means which usually come off as cheap and manipulative- not only montages and the death of an elderly character, but also such tropes as daddy issues and a child put in danger. The difference here is that they actually work. Perhaps it’s because Docter and Peterson don’t linger on them too long, or maybe it’s because they’re able to tweak them in interesting ways. Either way, the movie works like a charm. Up isn’t a pandering kids’ movie but an honest-to-goodness “family movie” in the classic sense, the kind of full-blooded entertainment that appeals to parents and children alike, similar to such sentimental favorites as Back to the Future. But Up is its own animal, and like ever-loyal Dug, it’s an animal that one looks forward to keeping around for years to come.

Rating: 10 out of 10.

Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975, Pier Paolo Pasolini)

2009-06-12T18:04:00.001-04:00

Nearly every discussion of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom begins with its content. On the one hand, this is only natural. After all, when a movie is as notorious as Salo is, you don’t bury the lead. Yet on the other hand, doing so creates something of a mistaken impression among those who read reviews of the film. When the first thing someone hears about a movie is how “extreme” and “controversial” it is, too often one jumps to the conclusion that it’s some sort of geek show, something to be avoided by all but the most thrill-seeking of moviegoers. I know that the impression of Salo that I’d harbored for years was that it was some kind of high-toned exploitation classic. But now that I’ve seen the film, I realize how far off base my impression was. Make no mistake- Salo’s characters engage in some of the most terrible acts of brutality and degradation I’ve ever seen onscreen. But exploitation this isn’t.

One of the most surprising thing about Salo is how little Pasolini depends on visceral shock- no mean feat for a film that subjects its characters to rape, torture, coprophagy, and many other sorts of humiliation. But then, “characters” doesn’t seem to be the right word for Salo’s young victims. For the most part, Pasolini has no desire to make us care about, let alone identify with, the teenagers who are kidnapped and enslaved by the quartet of bluebloods known as the President, the Duke, the Bishop, and the Magistrate. Occasionally, some humanity will shine through- for example Eve, the girl whose mother was murdered- but these tiny glimpses of personality merely tease the audience to feel for the people onscreen before being stomped out of them.

The preceding paragraph might sound like I’m criticizing the film, but I’m not. Pasolini’s lack of character investment doesn’t make Salo a bad film, but rather a fascinating one. By not rubbing our faces in the brutality onscreen, Pasolini instead asks us to ponder the ideas behind the story. Many of these ideas deal with Pasolini’s depiction of social class. Pasolini was an avowed Marxist who throughout his career demonstrated contempt for Italy’s bourgeoisie, and Salo isn’t remotely subtle in the way it shows its upper-crust characters exploiting their social to their own ends. Pasolini has no love for this outmoded system which places a few above all others and more or less grants the privileged carte blanche to trample the others as they please. In a strange way, Salo feels like a Marxist corrective to films that depict the noble aristocracy with warmth and nostalgia.

But Salo is actually more complicated than that. On one level, Pasolini is depicting the perversity of the aristocracy, as when The Duke says, “the only true anarchy is that of power.” Yet the film also invites us to consider the pathology behind the powerful. Consider two central scenes of the film’s infamous “Circle of Shit” set piece. The first comes when The Duke berates the aforementioned Eve for crying for her murdered mother then forces her to eat his feces. It’s clear in this scene that The Duke relishes the power he has over his victim, especially when he says, “that whining’s the most exciting thing I’ve ever heard.”

But what to make of a later scene in which the entire group- both captors and captives- sits down in the dining room to eat the shit they’ve collected especially for the occasion, with the captors clearly enjoying the meal? And how about the ecstasy on the Duke’s face when another girl pisses on his face, or the storytelling sessions in which aging prostitutes regale the group with tales of their own youthful humiliations? From the time The Bishop states his philosophy that “all’s good if it’s excessive,” there’s more going on in with these characters than a straightforward power trip. It’s as if by sexually abusing the teenagers, the bourgeois are saying not “you’ll take your punishment and enjoy it,” but rather, “you’ll take your punishment and enjoy it as we do.”

In researching this review, I discovered that Salo is a town in Italy that served as a puppet republic for the Nazis near the end of World War II. Because of this, it’s not hard to read Salo as a condemnation of Italy’s collaboration with the Hitler, even if the events we see on the film were inspired not by real life but a novel by the Marquis de Sade. In the first few minutes of the film, we see young men being taken away by the aristocrats not to be prisoners but guards, and from that point they much of their retainers’ more menial tasks. One of the men even calmly explains, “we’re only following orders,” just before he leads four of the captors’ daughters to be married to their fathers. In the film’s final scene, while one of the captors watches his colleagues torture the teenagers through opera glasses, we see two of the soldiers sitting off to the side, bored. They strike up a conversation about on of the soldiers’ girlfriends before getting up and lazily dancing to a tune on the radio.

It’s not the subtlest depiction of the way people become desensitized to brutality that isn’t happening to them, but then, Salo isn’t a subtle film, nor does it mean to be. Nonetheless, it’s typical of Pasolini’s strategy throughout the film- to provoke the audience in a way that incites them to think once they get past the so-called “gag reflex.” Is it any wonder the film is a favorite of both Michael Haneke and Catherine Breillat? Far from the gross-out cult object its reputation would suggest, Salo a movie that demands to be taken seriously, full of ideas so potent that it remains as controversial and shocking now as it was three decades ago.

Incidentally, I wasn’t able to find a good place to mention this in the review, but this is my first exposure to Pasolini. As always, I’d be happy to hear any recommendations of which of his other films are especially worth seeing.

Also, for another take on the film, check out my bud Andrew Bemis’ review.

Star Trek (2009, JJ Abrams)

2009-05-11T18:26:00.000-04:00

Superficially speaking, Star Trek seems to have everything one could ask for from a summer blockbuster: likable stars, snazzy effects, and lots of explosions, all given a high-gloss sheen. And in this respect, the movie delivers what it promises- the response so far has been almost totally positive (its current Metacritic score is 84), and it should prove to be a big hit. Yet despite all this, Star Trek left me strangely cold. As a fan of the original series and the majority of the movies it spawned, I’m no doubt biased toward the first incarnation of Trek, and judging by the enthusiasm that many non-fans have for the film, my response is hardly typical. But I suppose that this is part of my problem with the movie- that Paramount and director JJ Abrams have made such an effort to appeal to non-Trek fans that they’ve lost some of what made the original series really feel like Star Trek to me.

One thing that really stood out for me (and not in a good way) was Abrams’ restless camera, which contrasts pretty decisively from the stationary setups of old-school Trek. Abrams hails from the world of television, and indeed this style of camerawork has become a TV staple ever since shows like Homicide and ER began using it extensively in the nineties. But while Abrams uses this device as a means to liven up the action, particularly in the scenes on the Enterprise bridge, it was mostly a distraction for me. What’s more, by trying to heighten the tension of every scene on the ship, the movie’s actual action and suspense scenes make less of an impact, since almost everything is pitched at the same momentum. Maybe it’s just that old-fashioned stately squareness is one of the things I find most endearing about old-school Trek- it was never about high-octane action or “cool,” and while the market may demand a Star Trek that’s half Joe Camel and a third Fonzarelli, I don’t have to like it.

That said, I enjoyed the movie more than I thought I would, and it’s certainly not the “Star Trek Babies”-esque spinoff I’d originally feared. As the movie progresses, it becomes clear that Abrams is less interested in a traditional prequel than a full-scale reboot- less Phantom Menace, more Batman Begins. And while some scenes seemed wrong to me (particularly the stuff between Spock and Uhura), I didn’t have much trouble accepted most of what happened in the movie. Similarly, the new cast isn’t Shatner and company, but nor do they try to be, and most of them find their own takes on the characters while remaining true to their original natures. Chris Pine’s Kirk has his own kind of devil-may-care approach, Zachary Quinto’s Spock is more hard-nosed than Nimoy’s (of course, he’s younger too), and Karl Urban’s Dr. McCoy is a blast- who knew this guy had it in him? If only Abrams can settle down a little prior to the inevitable sequel (but what will it be called?), this new Trek franchise could very well have its own Wrath of Khan-caliber installment. Of course, that’s a pretty big “if,” and judging by the applause after my screening last weekend, newly-converted fans will be craving more of the same. Oh well… Rating: 5 out of 10.

Chicago 10 (2007, Brett Morgen)

2009-01-22T18:14:00.002-05:00

First off, all those critics complaining that Morgen doesn’t adequately lay down historical context in this movie are high. I’m part of a generation that was born after the titular trial had been consigned to history (to wit: the last time I heard anyone mention Bill Kunstler was my most recent viewing of The Big Lebowski), yet I had no problem following what was going on in Chicago 10. Does it honestly matter that (as A.O. Scott gripes) the film barely touches on the candidates at the Democratic National Convention that occasioned the mass convergence of demonstrators on Chicago in summer ’68? I’d say it doesn’t. Great documentaries aren’t about information, but illumination, and while some might argue that the film is lacking in the former, it’s overflowing with the latter, and that’s what really counts.

What’s more, I believe that Morgen’s tendency to sketch over stuff like the candidates’ names was a deliberate and wise move on his part. While knowing the names of the people who ran back in ’68 is important for those who are studying the convention itself, Chicago 10 isn’t about that. Instead, Morgen re-creates the circus that sprung up around it due to the tension between the establishment powers and the counterculture forces of the day. It’s somewhat horrifying to see the two sides push each other, back and forth, until the situation comes to a bloody, fiery head on the streets of Chicago. Whether your sympathies lie with the demonstrators or the establishment (and the film is less biased towards the kids than you might think), it’s clear that it got out of hand not merely because of the massive scale of the demonstrations, but also because of both sides’ unwillingness to really talk it through instead of trying to shout over each other.

This is what makes the structure of the film so ingenious. Instead of beginning with the riots then moving into the trial, Morgen cuts between the two. It helps to reflect that the trial, as re-created in vivid animation by the film, is basically the demonstration in miniature- the establishment (in the form of Judge Julius Hoffman) views the kids with contempt, the defendants attempt to subvert his authority, the voices of reason (e.g. Bill Kunstler) are roundly ignored, and the conflict escalates resulting in the violent censuring and repression of Bobby Seale. No wonder Abbie Hoffman called it a circus- not only was it a strange spectacle (thanks to both sides) but it just keeps going around and around, in the British sense of the word.

Even if Morgen isn’t obviously biased in favor of the demonstrators, he seems nonetheless fascinated by the wave of dissent that crested in the sixties. Chicago 10 presents the events of 1968 as a double-edged sword, paying equal attention to the hope that arose in the youth that they might be able to affect change (or at least be part of something that did), and the sobering fallout that came out of the youth movement being crushed by those in power. By refusing to turn the story into an ossified period piece, Morgen asks us to consider what place dissent might have in our current situation. Much has been made of the recent winds of change, but they’ve all come from within the system, and for decades there’s been a palpable fear in our society to risk anything on the same scale as the political movements of the sixties. No longer does it seem worth the risk for people to put everything on the line for an ideal in order to take on the government. I wonder what Abbie would’ve thought of that.

Rating: 9 out of 10.

Revolutionary Road (2008, Sam Mendes)

2009-01-20T18:26:00.002-05:00

One of the painful truths that most people have to deal with once adulthood hits is the idea that we aren’t nearly as special or as unique as we’d like to think we are. Life exerts a tidal pull on most of us, and swim though we might, we just aren’t strong enough to avoid getting swept up in it. It’s this idea more than any other that wrecks the marriage of Frank (Leonardo DiCaprio) and April Wheeler (Kate Winslet), a pair of twentysomething dreamers who yearn for a life in Paris until reality hits them smack in the face in the form of a pair of kids and the demands that pile up as a result. This germ of a premise forms the basis of Revolutionary Road, a movie which, alas, takes that germ as the foundation for yet another handsomely-mounted portrait of suburban ennui. Like its protagonists, the film seems to pin the blame for the couple’s discontents on soul-sucking suburban life. Based on the evidence in the story, the Wheelers’ problems spring from something deeper than their locale- a lack of shared interests and some skewed priorities, to name two examples- that would doubtless follow them no matter their surroundings. But as in Mendes’ severely overrated Oscar-winner American Beauty, Revolutionary Road takes the easy way out in its portrayal of dead-end suburbia. Mendes has never been the subtlest of filmmakers, and this comes through most clearly here in the performances by his lead actors- DiCaprio and Winslet are fine but nothing more, giving performances that are heavy on actorly stylings but light on nuance, particularly down the final stretch. Did the stylized fifties setting get the better of them? On the other hand, the ever-reliable Michael Shannon is dynamite in the film’s key supporting role. Portraying the dramatically convenient character of the truth-telling mental patient, Shannon is quickly becoming one of my favorite character actors, and here he commands his handful of scenes with his frayed-nerve intensity (his final line is devastating). Revolutionary Road is gorgeous to look at, and there are enough well-made scenes to lead me to believe that Mendes might knock a straight-up thriller out of the park. I just wish they added up to more. Rating: 5 out of 10.

The Wrestler (2008, Darren Aronofsky)

2009-01-20T18:26:00.001-05:00

(Apologies in advance for the language, but in this case no better word comes to mind. Sorry mom.)

The title on the poster is The Wrestler, and that’s a pretty accurate representation of how Randy “The Ram” Robinson (Mickey Rourke) sees himself. Yet just as accurate, if not as ad-friendly, would be The Fuckup. After all, here’s a guy with very few prospects and almost no self-preservation instinct, who can’t seem to catch a break in life not because he’s unlucky, but because he basically screws himself out of bettering himself. Perhaps the main thing that keeps The Wrestler from being a Rocky clone is that he’s not just a lovable lug, but is a legitimate fuckup, whether it’s in his “day job” or in his relationship with his estranged daughter. Worst of all, he knows his nature only too well. Inside the ring, he’s a hero- albeit an aging, downmarket version of one- who’s not only good at what he does but has a rapport with the fans. But outside the squared circle, he can’t make the payments on his trailer, spends all his money on steroids and tanning beds, and tries to put the moves on an aging stripper (Marisa Tomei). Hell, the guy’s real first name is “Robin.” In addition, he’s stuck in the past, not just the glory days of his career, but also in a youthful lifestyle, with hard-partying nights (one of which torpedoes his attempts to reconcile with his daughter) and a centerfold plastered to the wall of his bathroom.

Of course, most reviews of The Wrestler have singled out the parallels between “The Ram” and Rourke himself, a former acting golden boy whose career slide was largely of his own doing. But to say Rourke is playing himself is to deny what a startling piece of acting this is. The physical aspects of the role are most apparent, not merely the buffed-out (no doubt steroid-enhanced) physique, but also his commitment to verisimilitude in the wrestling scenes- that’s his actual blood we see on more than one occasion, folks. But while Rourke’s undeniable physicality was also at the forefront of his wonderful turn in Sin City, that role was an outsized caricature, and “The Ram” is completely human-sized. His lack of invincibility makes his fuckup nature that much more poignant, since the time is clearly limited for him to pull himself together. My favorite example of this in the film comes in his brief stint behind a supermarket deli counter- not the most glamorous of jobs, but one he begins to settle into during the film. If anything, I wish Aronofsky had included some more scenes of Rourke flirting, joking, and shooting the bull with customers (“what can I get ya, spring chicken?”), which might have made his eventual fate in the job all the more effective in my mind- my dream cut of the film would run at least half an hour longer, the difference all comprised of deli scenes. Nonetheless, The Wrestler is a rarity in American cinema- a simple, straightforward character study that doesn’t sugarcoat its protagonist but makes us feel for him all the same. It’s pretty magical, all the way through its perfect final shot.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

Hotel for Dogs (2009, Thor Freudenthal)

2009-01-20T18:25:00.000-05:00

On one level, this is a pretty innocuous and standard-issue family movie- squeaky-clean and predictable, but with enough “scary parts” to throw kids off the scent of the obvious happy ending. In addition, the dogs are remarkably well trained, responding perfectly to everything the kids can throw at them, and even getting along nicely (they even sit patiently at the dinner table) until such time as the plot demands they do otherwise. That said, I have a hard time objecting much to a movie that exposes children to the idea that dogs need to be properly cared for. The dogs that are rescued by Andi (Emma “niece of Julia” Roberts) and Bruce (Jake T. Austin) have been abandoned or forgotten by uncaring owners somewhere along the line, and there’s even some talk by the folks at the pound of having to put them down for population-control reasons (spaying and neutering isn’t mentioned, but what the heck- it’s a kid’s movie). If nothing else, I found this a welcome corrective to movies like 101 Dalmatians and Beverly Hills Chihuahua, which accentuate the cute’n’cuddly aspects of their furry protagonists without paying much attention to the care they require. Just as surprisingly, the movie doesn’t lean too heavily on its message-y aspects, instead integrating them into the storyline fairly seamlessly. As a result, the sillier aspects of the movie- the bumbling animal control workers, the dumbass foster parents (Kevin Dillon and Lisa Kudrow), the endless pratfalls and obsession with the bodily substances of dogs- become easier to swallow. And Don Cheadle takes what’s more or less the paycheck role of the kids’ case worker and gives the movie a surprising amount of gravitas, even transforming the hackneyed final speech into a fairly affecting moment, no mean feat when he’s in danger of being upstaged by dozens of dogs. I can’t in good conscience recommend this for anyone who doesn’t have kids, but if you do, you could do a whole lot worse. Finally, I feel bound to say that this movie needed more pugs. Is it that they’re not conventionally cute enough, or that they’re difficult to train? Either way, a few brief glimpses weren’t enough. Rating: 5 out of 10.

Doubt (2008, John Patrick Shanley)

2009-01-03T10:55:00.000-05:00

The popular line on Doubt is that it’s overly theatrical, more a filmed play than an out-and-out movie. Yet I’d have to disagree- while it’s true that Shanley does little to “open up” the action in a traditional sense- I’d say the theatricality of the film isn’t rigorous enough. Doubt is first and foremost a movie about ideas, about differing worldviews that clash at the time when their conflict would create the most fallout. From the beginning, it’s clear that Sister Aloysius (Meryl Streep) represents the more hard-line dogmatic Catholicism that one found pre-Vatican II, while Father Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman) embodies the more progressive, humanistic sort that came later. Naturally, the two don’t exactly get along- he thinks she needs to change with the times, while she distrusts his motives in reaching out to his parishioners and students, particularly the school’s one African-American student, Donald. Once Sister Aloysius seizes upon some circumstantial evidence to determine in her mind that Father Flynn has abused the boy, it’s pretty much over for him, as she knows that even the breath of scandal could end his life in the priesthood. It’s in this plot strand that the casting of Hoffman really pays off- putting a more conventional movie star in the role would have made the character too trustworthy, but Hoffman, who has never shied from playing oddballs and perverts, has an ambiguous enough presence to create in the viewers’ minds a suspicion that he might be hiding something, even if it’s not the misdeed Sister Aloysius has pinned on him. And Hoffman responds with one of his best performances, a fascinating portrait of a man driven by his faith and his desire to do good, while being torn by demons that were just as unspeakable then as his alleged abuse. Streep, for her part, is also fine, especially when she lets her humanity and limitations shine through, and the film’s showstopper scene, which pits Sister Aloysius’ absolute morality against the more situational kind espoused by Donald’s mother (Viola Davis, excellent), is obviously a master class in this kind of thing. The biggest drawback of the film is Shanley’s direction, which might have been effective had he been content to accentuate the theatricality of the text, thereby casting into sharp relief his ideas and the characters who espouse them. Unfortunately, Shanley relies far too heavily on loaded close-ups, dramatic weather changes, and above all severe tilts to underline his points. It’s sad, seeing a writer in such command of his ideas turn into a filmmaker who is so unsure these ideas will hit home that he needs to point them out to the audience every chance he gets. Rating: 6 out of 10.

Frost/Nixon (2008, Ron Howard)

2009-01-03T02:19:00.000-05:00

Diverting enough, I suppose, in an underdog sports-flick sort of way, and the lead performances are both rock solid- Langella’s getting the plaudits for his Nixon, wherein he captures Tricky’s nature despite the fact that he looks next to nothing like the guy, but Sheen’s just as good at finding a center in the professional smarm-machine David Frost. Yet the movie never really satisfies, for reasons that go beyond the typically nondescript Ron Howard direction and gratuitous faux-documentary stuff. Watching Frost/Nixon, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the movie really doesn’t have a filmsy reason to exist. While I’m all for enjoying a movie on its own merits, there are certain types of films that one must view through the prism of relevance to today’s world, and Frost/Nixon, a dramatization about a real-life political incident, is one of those movies. In other words, if one is going to tell the story of David Frost’s interview of Richard Nixon, one must successfully answer the question, “why tell this story now?” Alas, Howard and screenwriter Peter Morgan never do this. Aside from a few attempts to parallel Nixon to Bush II- attempts that backfire, I might add, considering Nixon’s misdeeds would hardly raise an eyebrow thirty years down the line, which really says it all- there’s no real contemporary “in” to the Frost/Nixon story. The best the movie can manage is to provide the liberals in the audience a kind of secondhand catharsis, the vicarious thrill of seeing one of their primary boogeymen brought down on a national stage. But even this falls flat on two fronts, primarily because Howard and Morgan buy so completely into the revisionist post-Oliver Stone view of Nixon as a lonely, misunderstood outsider in a company town, a view that comes through most clearly in the awful, pandering phone call scene between Nixon and Frost. So what does that leave us with? Some fairly shallow entertainment, but considering what time of the year it is, entertaining movies ain’t exactly hard to come by. Rating: 4 out of 10.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008, Eric Roth)

2009-01-02T19:19:00.000-05:00

Yeah, yeah, it’s the Gump storyline all over again- same life-spanning narrative, same episodic structure, same bifurcated character arcs that occasionally intersect. But I thought it worked better here, since it’s doesn’t lean so hard on the irony, nor does it traffic in the cornpone Americana that made Zemeckis’ film a hit. There’s no way Benjamin’s story can end well, and the film acknowledges this, and shifting the primary perspective to Daisy pays off in the home stretch much more effectively than planting us squarely in Benjamin’s shoes throughout. That said, I really wish the filmmakers had thought to get rid of the lame-ass framing device, not simply because of the semi-gratuitous use of Katrina as a plot point, but also because it adds nothing to the story, since it’s pretty clear who the old lady is from the beginning. Still, it’s handsome as hell (I mean, Fincher, duh), and a perfectly serviceable piece of Oscar-bait. Sure beats the hell out of Slumdog, anyway. Sorry I don’t have more to say- saw this a week ago, and lots has happened since. Rating: 6 out of 10.

A Christmas Tale (2008, Arnaud Desplechin)

2008-12-24T15:09:00.000-05:00

One of the things I value most about the films of Arnaud Desplechin is that he understands the messiness that arises when people aren’t exactly on the same page. In Desplechin’s work, there’s a tension that comes out of people’s perspectives not lining up quite right, and it’s rare to find two lives that fit together completely in a way that is largely free of this tension. In this respect, it seems almost inevitable that Desplechin would eventually make a movie about a family gathering for Christmas, since few dramatic situations are so fraught with this tension. Even the best families have their squabbles and resentments, yet when they gather together for the holidays, in the interest of decorum and “holiday cheer” they fall back on politeness and long-standing traditions to keep the long-simmering emotions at bay.

What’s more, there’s a tendency among most families to assign unspoken labels to each member at a relatively early stage, then to hold tightly to those labels through the years, even past the point where they no longer apply. Little wonder that many adults see the old-fashioned family Christmas less as a pleasure than an obligation, something to be gotten over with so they can get to celebrating everything their own chosen way.

Even under ideal circumstances, Christmas with the Vuillards, the family at the center of A Christmas Tale, would be uneasy. But with matriarch Junon (Catherine Deneuve) gravely ill, and middle child Henri (Matthieu Amalric) back at the party for the first time since being banished six years prior, it gets near-impossible to keep those old unpleasant feelings under wraps. Junon requires a bone marrow transplant, but given her rare blood type, only two family members are compatible- Henri and Paul, the teenage son of Henri’s older sister Elizabeth (Anne Consigny), who has long despised her little brother for reasons that are never fully explained.

In a more conventional film, Henri and Elizabeth would see this opportunity as a chance to reconcile, with the once-irresponsible brother stepping in to help their mother and save his young nephew the risk. But in A Christmas Tale, it doesn’t work out that way. Elizabeth- who spearheaded Henri’s banishment in the first place- has always been the good and responsible eldest child, and she resents that it’s her ne’er-do-well of a brother who will have the chance to help their mother. In addition, she sees the possibility of Paul helping her mom not merely as a chance to bring her closer to her son, but also to give him a renewed sense of purpose. Both of which are fairly good reasons from Elizabeth’s perspective, but (not that Elizabeth cares) this doesn’t leave much of a place for Henri. Does her antipathy for him spring solely from the incident in question, or is it indicative of something deeper- perhaps (this being a Desplechin film) an inability to deal with the messiness that Henri brings?

In this respect, Desplechin could be called a spiritual cousin of Jean Renoir, especially the Renoir who once penned the line- “the great tragedy of life is this: everyone has his reasons.” All too often in A Christmas Tale, the characters neglect or even hurt the feelings of those closest to them to satisfy their own interests, but in their eyes they’re just doing what they feel must be done. It can be as simple as Junon balking at the skin inflammations that could potentially result from the transplant, or as emotionally fraught as Sylvia (Chiara Mastroianni), wife of the youngest brother Ivan (Melvil Poupaud), sleeping with her ex-lover as a means of bringing some closure to their aborted, long-ago relationship. And then there’s Henri, who despite any efforts he might make will always be “the bad kid” to his family. Is there any wonder that we rarely see him happy until he ducks out with his girlfriend Faunia (Emmanuelle Devos) to drop her off at the train station?

But I’ve made A Christmas Tale sound sort of dismal, when in fact it’s anything but. In spite of all the despair flying around, the Vuillard house is filled with life and even familial warmth, particularly from the kindly paterfamilias Abel (Jean-Pierre Rousillon- I love that in a Desplechin film a jolly, potato-faced guy like him can wind up with Catherine Deneuve), and no small amount of humor. And from the very beginning of the film, when the family history is recounted using shadow puppets- thus lending it a broad, archetypal quality- Desplechin’s stylistic decisions are bold, yet perfectly used. After my first viewing, A Christmas Tale doesn’t quite measure up to his masterful Kings and Queen, but it’s so full of life, with all its messiness and unpredictability, that I’m sure my esteem for it will only grow over time.

Rating: 9 out of 10.

Synecdoche, New York (2008, Charlie Kaufman)

2008-12-06T02:10:00.001-05:00

It’s not hard to see why Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York has sharply divided critics and audiences. It’s almost impossibly ambitious, yet at first glance it seems to strike many viewers as show-offy and self-indulgent, particularly given the way its sobering worldview undermines any of its potential entertainment value. Yet to dismiss the film as Kaufman getting stuck up his own ass (to quote Mike D’Angelo) is to deny just how wise and sneaky a piece of work it is.

As virtually all of its supporters have said, Synecdoche is about nothing less than Life and Death- or, more specifically, the paths our lives take as we grow older. From the outset, Caden Cotard’s (Philip Seymour Hoffman) body is betraying him- pustules break out on his face, his eyes don’t dilate properly, a seizure leaves him unable to generate tears or saliva. This pileup of health disasters, coupled with his wife Adele (Catherine Keener) and daughter Olive leaving him, makes Caden mindful of his mortality, so he seizes on the opportunity afforded him by a McArthur Grant to turn his life into a massive theatre project.

In many films, making the protagonist a director reeks of solipsism, as though the filmmaker didn’t know anything about any other lifestyle besides a life in the arts. But here, it’s a brilliant move on Kaufman’s part, as Caden’s job and the project he mounts mirrors the impulse we’ve all felt to take control of our lives in order to make sense of them. However, Caden’s life becomes consumed by this inward-looking project, and the constant self-regard leads the production to drag on for year after year, growing far beyond his ability to control it.

But then, isn’t this how life is for all of us? In our younger years we’ve convinced that we’re the masters of our lives, only to see our worlds growing ever larger in old age while our own rules in them become smaller, until we’re not even calling the shots for ourselves anymore. Along the way, everything Caden knows and lives is lost to him- his parents, Adele and Olive, and his great love Hazel (Samantha Morton) all die, while his second wife Claire (Michelle Williams) also leaves never to return. Even time itself gets away from Caden, from the opening scene in which two nearly imperceptible temporal shifts take place, to later in the film where entire years get passed by unnoticed.

Yet for all its starkness, punctuated occasionally by typically Kaufmanesque non sequiturs, the film’s tone morphs gradually into a kind of warm ruefulness once it becomes clear how much possible happiness Caden has lost due to his inability to stop thinking about himself all the blasted time. Yet by the time this happiness comes within reach it’s too late, and the tragedy is that Caden recognizes full well that he won’t have another chance like it again. By the end, all he can do is to look back at a life of intense self-regard, and to reflect on the idea that to truly know oneself can be a source of misery rather than pleasure, and that all his attempts to create something larger than himself have fallen flat.

This is why, even in her absence, Adele may still be Synecdoche’s key supporting character, even more than Hazel, Claire, Olive, or even Sammy (Tom Noonan), who has been tailing Caden for two decades for reasons unknown but to himself. Through her art- postage stamp-sized miniature oil paints- Adele embraces smallness rather than being unwittingly consumed by largesse the way Caden is. Perhaps that’s why she needs to escape him, since she knows innately what it takes Caden a lifetime to learn. And if Caden could only stop and think about it, perhaps he might realize that Adele’s success through modestly-scaled art is a rebuke to his own ultimately-failed grandiosity.

Early in Synecdoche, New York Adele tells Caden, “everyone’s disappointing, the more you know someone.” Yes, and doubly so when that someone is yourself.

Note: Looking over this review, I can’t help but noticed that I’ve completely neglected to mention such things as direction, performances, and technical elements, although they’re all top notch, all the more impressively so for being Kaufman’s directorial debut. All I can say in my defense is that, cosmetic differences aside, I was so consumed by my own identification with Caden’s plight that I found it difficult to think of the filmic aspects of it. At numerous points in the film, Caden sees himself in the world around him, and I felt much the way watching the film itself. Make of that what you will.

Rating: 10 out of 10.

Slumdog Millionaire (2008, Danny Boyle)

2008-12-06T02:07:00.001-05:00

The key to the enduring success of the Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? property is its format. To begin with, it boils down the game show to its essence- one questioner, one answerer- then injects heaping helpings of built-in drama into the proceedings- the double-or-nothing scoring system, the multiple-choice questions (which puts contestants, somewhat unwisely, at ease), the lifelines, and the multi-step processes required to answer the question, which draws out the suspense almost to the breaking point. Which I suppose is a roundabout way of saying that the show is compulsively watchable, and hardly needs any more drama injected into it. Yet somehow, the game-show sequences are probably the most Earthbound parts of Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire, a film that’s been racking up accolades on the festival circuit and now seems primed to take home beaucoup arthouse bucks and Oscar nominations. I wish I could say the melodrama that pervades Slumdog to its very bones was a good thing- being a fan of melodrama as I am- but alas, the whole thing ends up coming off as contrived through and through. To begin with, there’s the premise of the movie- that the uneducated title character has somehow gleaned all the necessary answers through his life’s experiences. While this is true to a certain extent for most game-show contestants, it feels entirely too dramatically convenient here, especially when the film milks this for drama rather than absurdist comedy like the episode of Cheers where Cliff was a contestant on Jeopardy! To wit- nearly every answer isn’t simply from the protagonist’s life, but from a significant moment in his life. Of course, the film more or less comes out and says that his winning on the show (SPOILER!) was “destiny”, so we’re pretty squarely in fantasy territory here. Yet that hardly excuses the movie’s many spurious leaps in logic, not the least of which is some highly unprofessional behavior on the part of the host. Then there’s the final question on the show, which is not only jaw-droppingly predictable from about five minutes into the movie, but also far, FAR too easy to make the cut as a “million dollar” question. I hate to say it, but I get the impression that Slumdog Millionaire wouldn’t be getting nearly the buzz that it has so far had it been set in, say, New York City- it’s the exoticism of India that really seems to smooth over the film’s many rough spots in the minds of rapturous critics and audiences (sorry, Jason). As for me, I ain’t buying- no matter where it’s set, Slumdog Millionaire is diverting in the moment but pretty shameless on balance, hardly worthy of the love it’s getting. Rating: 4 out of 10.

Beverly Hills Chihuahua (2008, Raja Gosnell)

2008-12-02T18:26:00.001-05:00

Well… that happened. I knew that the Offspring was looking forward to this one, so when Angela fell ill again this past weekend, I bit the bullet and took him so he wouldn’t be cooped up all day. As expected, this is pretty shabby goods- I’m not a big fan of talking-animal movies anyway (the Babe franchise notwithstanding, natch), and since Chihuahuas are more or less my least favorite dogs, I knew I was going to be in for a long slog. But what really surprised me was how little effort the filmmakers put forth in making this thing. Lord knows I was no fan of the notorious teaser, but at least that tried to show some originality and pizzazz, however misguided. The movie itself, on the other hand, is pretty much the laziest possible movie that could have made from the premise- basically, a cut-rate canine Legally Blonde Goes to Mexico. It’s as though Disney figured that the once the trailer put asses in seats, their work was done, and they were henceforth under no obligation to actually entertain the audience. About an hour in, the Offspring turned to me and asked, “when are they gonna sing?”, and at that point I realized that I was actually wanting them to sing too- anything, really, to break the monotony and show me that someone involved in the movie actually gave a damn. The only things keeping this from getting a “1” rating were (a) the surprisingly world-weary voiceover performance from Andy Garcia as a dishonored police dog, and (b) the sparkling presence of Piper Perabo, who (as I’ve said before) really deserves better than the career she’s had since her “next big thing” hype all the way back in 2000. Yeesh, has it really been seven years since Lost and Delirious? Rating: 2 out of 10.

JCVD (2008, Mabrouk El-Mechri)

2008-12-02T18:25:00.001-05:00

During my teenage years, B-grade action movies were one of the many staples of my moviewatching, and since this was the early nineties, the filmography of Jean-Claude Van Damme was intensely familiar to me. So while my Van Damme education stopped around the time I went to college (I never managed to watch the allegedly awesome/crazy Double Team), I was nonetheless heartened to see him turn up in this lacerating quasi-self-portrait. At its best, JCVD holds its star up to audience scorn in a way that few star vehicles do- instead of the gentle ribbing found in most movies of this kind, the blows in this one sting, and a few even draw blood. Alas, the self-inflicted Van Dammage only takes up roughly a third of the movie, and director El-Mechri fills most of the rest of his time with a hostage storyline that drags on for far too long, and which no amount of directorial flourishes or stylistic noodling can make liven up. And while Van Damme himself proves surprisingly game as an anti-action hero, he mostly whiffs his big climactic monologue, in which he’s literally pulled out of the movie to offer an apology for his life and work. Yet I would still recommend the film to Van Damme watchers both old and new, not least for the shit-hot incredible opening shot (even the logos are awesome), as well as the final ten minutes or so, when the story defies the audience’s expectations and hopes for how a Van Damme movie really should end. If Van Damme’s not your bag, adjust your rating accordingly. Rating: 6 out of 10.

Australia (2008, Baz Luhrmann)

2008-11-29T13:57:00.003-05:00

Baz Luhrmann's films have been distinguished less by a consistent style or subject matter than a "let us entertain you!" sort of propulsiveness, in which the auteur practically bombards the audience with incident and imagery in an effort to make his mark. And while this tactic has yielded mixed results to date- Moulin Rouge! is the apex, with Romeo + Juliet the nadir- he actually puts a lid on this tendency for large portions of Australia. After a very Luhrmann-esque opening reel in which he crams exposition in like a starving kid loading up at Thanksgiving dinner, the director goes more old-school, as demanded by his genres of choice this time out, the Western and the romantic epic. There are still plenty of eye-popping visuals on display, but gone are the insistent cutting style and theatrical anachronisms of his previous work- if nothing else, Luhrmann has set out to make Australia a MOVIE through and through. But frankly, I'm not sure this is an improvement. For one thing, the few "Luhrmann-isms" that do find their way into the story stick out like the proverbial sore thumb, especially his repeated references to The Wizard of Oz (Get it? Australia? Oz? GET IT????), which go way beyond the numerous versions of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" throughout the film, something which might have been more forgivable had Luhrmann not made such a big damn deal over it. No, he feels the need to take the reference even further, as when Jack Thompson's character arrives for the cattle drive in a mini-twister. In addition, I wasn't especially taken with the movie's view of Aboriginal peoples. From the outset, Australia attacks the government's longtime policy toward half-caste children, previously laid down in Philip Noyce's Rabbit-Proof Fence. However, aside from the "creamy" child Nullah (Brandon Walters), all of the Aboriginal characters, whether half-caste or full-blooded, exist predominantly to aid the white heroes. What's more, the intergration of Aboriginal "magic" into the storyline is a half-hearted attempt on the filmmakers' part to show "respect" for their traditions, but it ends up backfiring by turning the characters- especially David Gulpilil's "King George"- into the "Other." But the most basic problem is that without the whip-smash editing and unflagging desire to wow the audience, the film seriously drags in spots. The film's other issues might have been easier to take if only Luhrmann had kept the movie going at a steady clip, but since the story gets really saggy at various points, it gives us (me, anyway) plenty of time to think about all the rest of the stuff that's going wrong. A few other random thoughts: (1) Nicole Kidman's brittle and chilly onscreen persona doesn't seem especially well-suited to Luhrmann's world, does it?; (2) perhaps it's partly due to the central character being a woman, but it's been a while since I saw a big-budget epic take such a distinctly female gaze toward its male lead- Jackman is easily the movie's most potent lust object, whether washing himself in view of Kidman or making the sort of attention-getting party arrival normally reserved for ingenues; (3) is it just me, or is David Wenham essentially playing the Duke from Moulin Rouge! here? That Luhrmann's style of villain is so easily recognizable is more interesting than almost anything else in this mildly diverting but ultimately disappointing movie. Rating: 5 out of 10.

Happy-Go-Lucky (2008, Mike Leigh)

2008-11-15T01:20:00.001-05:00

At first glimpse, Poppy (Sally Hawkins) is one of those unbearably chipper types who seem to take it as their mission in life to force their good cheer on the world. It certainly would appear that she’s that sort in the film’s opening scene, in which she visits a bookstore and tries to cheer up a clerk who clearly can’t be bothered. At this point, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop, for Happy-Go-Lucky to turn into a story in which Poppy, sooner or later, gets that grin (metaphorically) slapped off her face. Thankfully, Leigh has other plans. Instead of making us anticipate his upbeat heroine get taken down a few notches, he actually lets us get to know her, and if there’s one thing we learn from our time alongside Poppy, it’s that her happiness comes from within. Rather than being one of those oblivious sorts who smiles because she’s too dense to comprehend the shit that surrounds her, Poppy’s happiness is born from a healthy sense of perspective- she knows her place in the world, and she doesn’t need anything more than that to be happy. This idea becomes clear during a scene in which she visits her little sister, who is married with a baby on the way and a new home, and who is as stressed out as Poppy is relaxed (this is also the most prototypically Leigh-esque scene in the film).

The trouble is that Leigh’s storytelling, such as it is, feels too neat, with the drama in the film centered almost entirely on Poppy’s interactions with Scott (Eddie Marsan), a bitter driving instructor prone to emotional outbursts. From their first scene together, Leigh positions Scott as Poppy’s polar opposite, and whatever tension can be found in Happy-Go-Lucky comes from the friction that builds between them. Which is fine, I suppose, except that (a) the difference in tension between the Scott scenes and the rest of the film makes the other scenes feel slight by comparison, and (b) by so neatly cordoning off the really dramatic stuff from the rest of the movie, much of the human messiness that can usually be found in Leigh’s work is lost. Aside from Scott, most of the other characters who surround Poppy tend to accept her as she is, even the ones who don’t really know her. And while it’s true that her kind of happiness is generally infectious, surely there are people who don’t always respond to it and aren’t complete psychos. By limiting the spectrum of human behavior this time around, Leigh has made the world he’s created with his performers far less varied, and consequently less interesting. None of this, however, is any fault of Hawkins, who manages the difficult feat of creating a character who’s genuinely warm and caring, and takes a role that might have been insufferable in other hands and makes her really lovable.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

Role Models (2008, David Wain)

2008-11-13T23:51:00.001-05:00

(originally written for a work newsletter)

When I first heard the premise for Role Models- a pair of slackers get ordered by the courts to become mentors to troubled youth- I didn’t have much hope for it being good. It seemed like something out of high-concept Hades, reminiscent of a cheesy 80s-era sitcom. Yet somehow, Role Models makes it work. With a game cast, it’s that rarity- a comedy that’s not just funny but legitimately likable.

Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott star as Danny and Wheeler, a pair of thirtysomethings who pay the bills by hawking energy drinks in public schools. Depressed after being dumped by his longtime girlfriend (Elizabeth Banks), Rudd crashes the company truck, landing them in court with two options- a month of jail, or community service. Naturally, they choose the second option, and wind up in the "Big Brothers/Big Sisters"-esque "Sturdy Wings" Program, where each is paired up with a "little". Wheeler’s young charge is straight out of the comedy playbook, a ten-year-old named Ronnie (Bobb’e J. Thompson) with a mouth like a sailor. But Danny’s "little" is more surprising- a high school social leper named Augie, who devotes all of his free time to a medieval role-playing society that requires its members to dress up and do battle with makeshift swords and axes. Needless to say, the court-ordered mentors have their work cut out for them.

The film’s story is formulaic enough that the ending is more or less a foregone conclusion. However, there’s a lot of fun to be had along the way, provided you’ve got a taste for raunchy humor, including plenty of profanity from the young scene-stealer Thompson. Most of the movie coasts along on the strength of its jokes and gags, which hit more often than they miss. But it’s in the final reel or so that Role Models kicks into overdrive, as Augie enlists Danny, Wheeler and Ronnie for the "Battle Royale," in which all of the members of the role-playing society take the field to fight each other to the simulated "death." I’d go into more detail, but I’d hate to spoil the fun.

And in the end, Role Models is a lot of fun, courtesy of its talented stars and a handful of ringers in the supporting cast. After years of dependable supporting work, Rudd makes the most of the lead role here, and Scott is better than he’s been since the American Pie movies. Among the supporting players, Jane Lynch is memorable as the founder of "Sturdy Wings", who has an alarming tendency to bring up her old drug addiction at inappropriate moments. But best of all is Mintz-Plasse, who became a cult figure as Superbad’s "McLovin", here playing an even more awkward character this time around. Like Danny, we can’t help but look at him with dumbstruck awe when we first meet him, but as the story progresses, we grow to really like the kid and his unorthodox hobby. Role Models is a nice surprise, not least for all of you unreformed KISS fans out there. You know who you are.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

Quantum of Solace (2008, Marc Forster)

2008-11-13T23:50:00.001-05:00

(originally written for a work newsletter)

What makes a James Bond movie different from a regular action movie? Bond movies have always been famous for their stunts, their chases, their gadgets, their villains, and their women. But then, you can find these in just about every action movie. No, I think what really distinguishes 007 from the everyday high-octane thriller is its style. From the beginning, Bond has been about wish fulfillment, in which audience members who yearn for globetrotting, high-rolling adventure (all in the service of one’s country, of course) can feed their fantasies, safely, for the price of a movie ticket. No matter what actor plays the role, the style has always been the most important element of a Bond movie, and it’s what’s most lacking in the series’ latest installment, Quantum of Solace.

What makes this especially disappointing is that the previous 007 adventure, Casino Royale was a high-water mark in the series, a fusion of the classic Bond style and the grittier, more hard-edged feel of the modern action movie. However, this time out the scales have tipped too far in the latter direction, with Daniel Craig’s lean, mean 007 reduced to an bullet-headed action figure. Making matters worse is the film’s over-reliance on the kind of frenzied, choppy action sequences that have been in vogue after the popularity of the Bourne movies. The fights and chases become little more than incoherent messes of motion and color, and more than one potentially exciting scene is squandered because it’s almost impossible to make out what the heck is happening onscreen.

As in any James Bond movie, there are a handful of worthy moments, including some lovely locations, and a few returning characters from previous adventures, most notably the invaluable Judi Dench as the long-suffering M. Yet for the most part, I couldn’t help but shake the feeling that I’d seen most of Quantum of Solace before, and done better. In the past, Bond movies have set the pace for the action genre, so it’s a little upsetting to see the series ripping off other hits. I’ve seen all of the Bond movies at least once, and although I’ve sat through a number of subpar ones (you can’t convince me that Moonraker wasn’t meant to be a comedy), I’ve never been bored with any of them until now. To my eyes, 007 movies are about entertainment, and by failing to be much fun, Quantum of Solace fails the first- and most important- test of the series. Disappointing all around.

Rating: 4 out of 10.

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2008, Tom McGrath and Eric Darnell)

2008-11-09T21:37:00.002-05:00

(originally written for a work newsletter)

2005’s animated hit Madagascar was a pleasant surprise, taking a relatively standard-issue fish-out-of-water storyline and jazzing it up with vibrant animation and a surprisingly heady nature-vs.-nurture theme. Now the original Madagascar gang is back with the sequel, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, in which our heroes’ disastrous attempt to return to New York City causes them to crash-land in the African savanna. All of the major characters are back again this time, not just the central foursome (Ben Stiller as Alex the Lion, Chris Rock as Marty the zebra, Jada Pinkett Smith as Gloria the hippo, and David Schwimmer as Melman the giraffe) but also returning favorites like the lemur King Julian, voiced by Borat’s Sacha Baron Cohen, and a quartet of resourceful no-nonsense penguins. Frankly, all this familiarity makes the movie feel somewhat stale, with many of the jokes coming off as retreads of the original movie. There’s even a fairly gratuitous and distracting subplot involving a group of American tourists who are forced to fend for themselves, with the group led by the same feisty granny who beat up Alex with her handbag in the first installment of the film.

In addition, once the gang reaches the savanna, each character gets its own storyline, with varying levels of interest. The lion’s share of the screen time (sorry) goes once again to Alex, who is not only spectacularly unsuited to life in the wild- another plot point from the original movie- but now finds himself reunited with his alpha-lion father, nicely voiced by the late Bernie Mac. However, I was much more entertained by the subplot involving Marty and the pack of zebras, who not only look exactly like him but act and talk like him as well, creating no small amount of confusion. That said, the animation is even more eye-catching this time around, with lots of vivid color and inventive (though hardly realistic) character design. And there are still plenty of funny moments, most memorably those involving the scene-stealing King Julian (Sacha Baron Cohen is priceless as ever) and those crazy penguins. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa won’t win the franchise any new fans, but it should please most people who enjoyed the original film, especially kids.

Rachel Getting Married (2008, Jonathan Demme)

2008-11-08T16:37:00.003-05:00

I think the moment I realized exactly what a masterful achievement Rachel Getting Married is came during the rehearsal dinner. In this extended sequence- almost an entire reel long- director Jonathan Demme shows speech after speech, each one creative and sincere, and warmly received. Then we get to Kym, sister of the bride and maid of honor, played by Anne Hathaway. Up to this point in the film, Kym has been something of a fly in the ointment, getting released from rehab to come to Rachel’s wedding only to promptly run roughshod over the proceedings. But in her mind, her speech at the rehearsal dinner is her chance to make everything right. She gets up and throws out some tart one-liners, but nobody laughs. Then she takes a chance to make amends to the pain she’s caused her sister, but no one is really buying. It’s in this scene that we really begin to feel how deep the wounds are that separate Kym from the rest of her family, and even if her speech had been a success, it would’ve taken much more for her to heal them.

The trailer for Rachel Getting Married suggests a story in which Kym reconciles with her family, hugs are exchanged, and everyone parties till dawn backed by a samba band. But don’t let this fool you- it’s pretty strong meat. At various points in the story, it’s hard not to hate all of the characters at least a little bit- Kym for bringing her family such misery, Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt) for not trying to understand where Kym is coming from, their dad (Bill Irwin) for being ineffectual, their mom (Debra Winger) for running away when she’s needed. Hell, even the wedding itself seems too good to be true, like a liberal wet dream of a multi-culti secular wedding. It’s just so perfectly planned (by Rachel and her prissy best friend Emma, no less) that it feels like a rebuke to the messy, down-and-out life that Kym has been leading ever since she got involved with drugs. Watching Kym navigate her way around the wedding is a reminder of what it can be like when everyone seems to be enjoying themselves except for you.

Like Robert Altman before him, the Demme of Rachel Getting Married knows that sometimes, it’s better to let character establish themselves by the ways they interact with each other than to simply announce who they are to the audience. By plunging headlong into the story, the film completely immerses the audience in the dynamic of the Buckman family. Because of old wounds and tragedies, they just can’t connect as they should, so that even the most innocuous and oblivious gestures (like Kym handing dad a stack of plates) can be blown completely out of proportion. In lesser hands, the situation around which Rachel Getting Married is built might have come off as a comedy of discomfort in a Ricky Gervais vein, but here the laughs don’t come. Here, as Octave said in Rules of the Game, “the great tragedy of life is this- everyone has his reasons.” In a way, Rachel Getting Married plays like the humanist counterpart to the misanthropic Burn After Reading- in both films, the characters get so caught up in their own blinkered versions of the world that they can hardly be bothered with empathy.

Rating: 9 out of 10.

Changeling (2008, Clint Eastwood)

2008-11-01T09:55:00.001-04:00

A quick look at Eastwood’s filmography will reveal a tendency on his part to make- or even star in- movies that show a distrust of traditional institutions. Whether it’s Dirty Harry’s shunning of due process or Million Dollar Baby’s climactic scene which finds Eastwood stepping outside both the medical system and the teachings of his faith, Eastwood’s films tend to favor finding one’s own solutions to problems instead of leaving it in the hands of others. And with Changeling , Eastwood finds his most dramatically-fertile example to date- the real-life case of Christine Collins, who after her little boy was kidnapped was presented with another child by the LAPD and thrown into a mental hospital when she insisted he wasn’t hers. It’s such a corker of a story that it would be nearly impossible for a director of any skill to mess up, and while Eastwood’s deliberate style sometimes feels overly ponderous, it still works for the material. That’s not to say that more could’ve been made of this story with a somewhat pulpier treatment- imagine what a writer like James Ellroy could make of the Collins case- but Eastwood’s direction is unobtrusive enough that it doesn’t overwhelm the story. Trouble is, the focus is so limited to the story that Christine tends to get lost in it at times. And while I find it refreshing when a movie has no use for gratuitous subplots (love interests and the like), Collins never comes off as much of a character here. Part of it is no doubt due to Angelina Jolie’s limitations as an actress- she’s too modern, steely and self-conscious to work in a period context, for one thing. But while I understand that Christine Collins lived a fairly average life, the film appears to take her as little more than a blank slate, defined almost entirely by her son, first in his presence, then in his absence. If we’re supposed to get involved in Collins’ quest to find her son, we first have to care about her, and I just wasn’t feeling it here. That said, it is a pretty damn great story, and the movie doesn’t piss all over it, so I was interested throughout. I only wish I cared more.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

A Girl Cut in Two (2007, Claude Chabrol)

2008-11-01T09:53:00.001-04:00

As a moviegoer, there’s something to be said for “the thrill of the new”- discovering a talented neophyte, becoming immersed in a unique style, and so on. But there’s also real pleasure to be found in the work of a longtime veteran who has nothing left to prove. When a filmmaker has a style that’s firmly established, a truly talented filmmaker who’s not simply coasting will begin to tweak that style in his later years because he’s confident enough in his filmmaking gifts that he knows how far he can venture from his comfort zone. I kept thinking of this while watching A Girl Cut in Two, which seems at a glance to be a textbook Chabrol film, but turns out to be one of his darkest and most perverse films in years, and his best in over a decade. Of course, all of the expected ingredients are there- upper-class decadence, the trappings of high culture, and an outsider character who’s fascinated with these things until she actually gets a taste of the diseased lifestyle they come with. On the surface, Gabrielle (Ludivine Sagnier) is simply faced with a choice between spoiled, erratic heir Paul (Benoit Magimel) and doting, married, older author Charles (Francois Berleand). But once this initial premise has more or less played out, that’s when it gets really interesting. A lesser film would take one side or the other re: Gabrielle’s future, but in Chabrol’s world, they’re both fairly rotten, mostly because they’re rich enough that they’re out of touch with the rest of the world. Each man in his own way dominates Gabrielle, Charles by only meeting her at his convenience and stringing her along by promising to leave his wife, and Paul by virtue of his, shall we say, unstable personality. Meanwhile, what’s going on with Gabrielle? In some ways, she’s manipulated, but she never really thinks of simply leaving them. Each man comes along when she needs him, and she’s too weak-willed to cast them to manipulate them back. And she lacks the knowledge or the wisdom to realize that, in either case, she’s doomed. As the plot becomes ever more convoluted, Chabrol only reveals what he really has to, and the plot points he keeps vague (does Charles’ wife ever know? An enigmatic bit of dialogue involving a set of keys would indicate that, but you never quite know) become endlessly tantalizing in retrospect. And all the while, there’s the pleasure to be gotten from the exquisite cast- this is almost certainly the best-acted film I’ve seen this year- and the director who knows exactly what to do with them. Magimel’s leading-man good looks are offset by his bizarre clothes and hairstyle, and the aesthetic clash helps him create a memorably unhinged character. Sagnier is much bubblier than the typical Chabrol heroine, but then, the character exists to have her effervescence robbed from her by the storyline. And what else can be said about Francois Berleand, who is becoming one of my favorite character actors? To be sure, he’s an unconventional choice for the role of a sexually-liberated older man, but he and Chabrol use his hangdog face and sadsack presence to give the character a strange serenity of a man who with age and success has gotten used to getting what he wants out of life. He can’t really be blamed for his eventual fate, I suppose. After all, he couldn’t have known that it was out of his hands.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

W. (2008, Oliver Stone)

2008-10-20T19:06:00.001-04:00

Not the disaster many were apparently expecting, but in a strange way that makes it less interesting. If this had been one of Stone’s balls-to-the-wall fiascos, this might have had an insane train-wreck energy to it. Instead, it’s a solid biopic, with all the limitations that label implies. Most damaging is Stone’s tendency to apply reductive psychoanalysis to his antihero (Josh Brolin), especially regarding his strained relationship with "Poppy" George, played here by James Cromwell. Granted, I have little doubt that growing up in the shadow of such a high-profile figure as George Bush can be a decidedly mixed blessing. Yet to ascribe nearly all of W.’s actions to an inferiority complex- which even manifests itself in a handful of misguided fantasy sequences- is, to quote Orson Welles, "dollar-book Freud" (though to be fair to Welles, he took Rosebud much less seriously than Stone takes the father-son relationship here).

That said, the movie still mostly works, at least enough to make it Stone’s most watchable movie in more than a decade, which I’ll grant you isn’t saying much. I liked the bifurcated structure of the story, which allows Stone to juxtapose the almost inspiring story of Bush’s rise from alcoholic rich kid to national politician, with the more sobering behind-the-scenes re-creation of the planning of the Iraq War. Truth be told, I could have gone for at least another hour worth of the latter, especially the dialogue-heavy intrigue of the various Cabinet meetings. For me, there was a voyeuristic kick to seeing the ways in which W. was manipulated by some ("Vice" Cheney, "Rummy" Rumsfeld, "Genius" Rove) and enabled by others ("Guru" Rice), while others still (particularly Colin Powell) got more or less left out in the cold. Part of me wishes that Stone could’ve gotten the financial backing to make this Che-style, perhaps with the early years called "Junior", the later called "W.: The President” or something along those lines.

If nothing else, this structure would strengthen Stone’s central thesis, which states that George W. Bush might have been an archetypal American success story, had he never been elected President. In the film’s view, Bush was a spoiled rich ne’er-do-well who spent much of his younger years rebelling against his family’s legacy, only to give up alcohol and find religion, and eventually becoming successful in his own right. Compared to most men, he achieved success in life. Unfortunately for him, history will compare him not to the balance of Americans, but to American Presidents, who by and large are considerably tougher competition. In the film’s view, it was his bad luck that he had to rely on an inner circle of advisors more than most men in his position, thereby making it easier for the aforementioned manipulators and enablers to spin reality for their own political gain.

But really, if the film works at all, it’s because of Josh Brolin, who plays the title character from his drunken Yale years through the Presidency. Naturally, Stone gives Brolin the W. "highlight reel" moments- was there any doubt he’d say "misunderestimate" or "won’t get fooled again"?- and Brolin handles them nicely. Yet this isn’t simple mimickry- he’s made to look and sound the part, yes, but he also does a startling job of getting to the heart of a man who some might consider to be history’s greatest monster (excepting Jimmy Carter, of course). In many people’s eyes, Bush was a dope and a dupe, a son of privilege who coasted on his family connections and good ol’boy charm. Yet damn if Brolin doesn’t almost make him sympathetic in a way even Stone’s tired Freudianism can’t manage. If last year’s trio of breakout performances weren’t enough of an indication, W. should remove all doubt- Brolin is the real deal, folks. Time to recognize.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

Let the Right One In (2008, Tomas Alfredson)

2008-10-20T19:04:00.000-04:00

Settle down, horror nerds. Yes, Alfredson’s fusing of the vampire movie with a coming-of-age story is a pretty good idea, especially in the character of Eli, a vampiress who can never grow up. It’s a shame, then, that he never manages to settle on a style. In the movie’s more dramatic moments, Alfredson’s camera accentuates the frosty greyness of his settings, a directorial decision that helps to underline the tentativeness of the film’s central relationship between the eager Oskar, who’s trying to deal with his newly-acquired hormones, and Eli, who’s (understandably) reluctant to get close to him. Trouble is, the vampire story also requires some scenes of violence, and this is where Alfredson stumbles, by shooting in a hacky style that emphasizes special effects with little regard to character. The film never manages to navigate the difficult balance between its two sides, so instead the tonal transitions make the movie feel schizophrenic, like it’s vascillating between Tsai Ming-liang and Paul "Not Thomas" Anderson. Seeing it at the Horror Marathon really drove this home. The horror buffs naturally ate up scenes in which SPOILER a room full of house cats attacked a woman END SPOILER, but I was more interested in the dynamic between Eli and Oskar than the relatively uninspired action scenes. Which, of course, made it all the more disappointing when Alfredson attempts to resolve their complex and fascinating relationship by SPOILER having Eli swoop in to exact revenge on the bullies who’ve been menacing Oskar throughout the film END SPOILER. Even if the scene in question wasn’t cheesy looking, it still would’ve felt like an easy copout. Still, it’ll have to be better than the upcoming remake, no?

Rating: 5 out of 10.

Miracle at St. Anna (2008, Spike Lee)

2008-10-20T19:03:00.000-04:00

Spike Lee is one of the most fascinating filmmakers currently working in Hollywood, not least because his bold, seat-of-the-pants filmmaking style can just as easily result in transcendent masterpieces as jaw-dropping fiascos. Yet somehow, Lee’s take on an old-fashioned combat film, while closer quality-wise to the negative end of the spectrum, is actually far less interesting than such outright disasters as Girl 6 and She Hate Me. Some of the blame for this can no doubt be laid at the feet of the novel (by James McBride) on which the film is based. While Lee’s big-studio backers no doubt were relieved that the novel might serve as insurance against Lee’s more inflammatory impulses, the film has a bloated, digressive story that distracts from the power of the movie’s central idea- the harsh realities faced by African-American fighting men in WWII. It’s a powerful germ for a story, and the film’s most effective scenes focus on this idea, especially a flashback scene set in a Deep South ice cream parlor in which German POWs are permitted to eat but not black soldiers. It’s a shame about the other, say, two hours of movie that focuses on other matters. It would be bad enough if these scenes were serviceable but semi-extraneous, but that they’re almost entirely lame makes them all the more disappointing since they distract from what should be the good stuff. The biggest offender is the framing device, which wastes almost half an hour of the movie by setting up a contrived happy ending through a series of nigh-impossible coincidences. But there are numerous other plot strands- a romantic triangle involving a white-appeasing staff sergeant (Derek Luke), his militant second in command (Michael Ealy, a talented actor who’s wasted here), and a pretty local woman; the friendship between the gigantic simpleton of the bunch and a young Italian boy; the subplot involving the local partisans- that are nearly as bad. And not helping matters is Terence Blanchard’s score, which Lee cranks up so loud it’s almost oppressive. In the end, it’s pretty much Spike Lee on autopilot, which is just about the last thing I want from the guy.

Rating: 4 out of 10.

Choke (2008, Clark Gregg)

2008-10-20T19:01:00.001-04:00

You know, I wouldn’t have thought it possible for a movie in which a guy who ducks out of weekly Sex Addicts Anonymous meetings to nail other group members, makes extra money on the side by pretending to choke on food in restaurants in the hope that the Good Samaritans who save his life will be compelled to help him financially, and is briefly convinced that he’s the half-clone of Jesus Christ due to a genetic experiment involving his mother and the 2000-year-old Holy Foreskin to be so, I dunno, bland. But there it is, probably the least edgy adaptation of a Chuck Palahniuk novel that would have been possible. It could have worked with a ballsier filmmaker at the helm, but while neophyte Gregg is reportedly a big fan of the book, he just doesn’t have a handle on the tone of the film. Because of this, the best he can do is to sustain an Alexander Payne-lite feel of broad yet ironic comedy, largely sketching over the more unpleasant facets of Victor Mancini’s (Sam Rockwell) personality and difficult history with his mother in favor of lampooning easy targets like people who work in colonial re-creation exhibits. Consequently, the movie has the vibe of a failed Alan Ball-scripted pilot for a cable series, rather than a full-fledged movie. The rating below is largely due to Rockwell, who is the perfect Victor for all seasons, not only for this version of the story but also for the inevitably better telling that will play only in the minds of those who read the book.

Rating: 5 out of 10.

I Served the King of England (2006, Jiri Menzel)

2008-10-20T19:00:00.000-04:00

Menzel’s first feature in over a decade is definitely an old man’s film, containing the rueful regret of a man who has been through a lot and made it out alive. The key to the film echoes what Citizen Kane’s pal Thatcher famously said- that anybody can make a lot of money, if all you do is to make a lot of money. So it is with the film’s protagonist Jean Dite (played by Ivan Barnev in his younger days, Oldrich Kaiser in later years), who by luck and sheer force of will works his way up the chain of luxury until he lucks into his own hotel. His eyes on the prize, he relies on others for education and inspiration when he needs them, only to bring them low once he’s lost any use for them. Of course, this story would seem to lend itself to a moralistic reading, in which we’re made to hate the money-grubbing louse. But instead, Menzel tells the story as a sharp-edged comedy, in which Dite is a childlike little fool who has little going for him BUT his ambition, which carries him through some difficult times. To this end, the film is aided immeasurably by Barnev, a fine loose-limbed physical comedian who so good at being comically pathetic that he’s impossible to hate. Lucky for him too, since Dite engages in some seriously shady behavior when the chips are down- for example, look at the way he eventually comes to raise the funds for his own hotel. Menzel’s light touch suits the story surprisingly well, but in the end it’s a bit too featherweight to really register much, although it’s entertaining enough while you’re watching that you won’t care. Also, there’s plenty of female nudity, which is almost always nice.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

Transsiberian (2008, Brad Anderson)

2008-09-27T01:47:00.000-04:00

After the eerie but scattershot Session 9 and the somewhat listless The Machinist, Anderson finally shows some real aptitude with the thriller genre with his latest film, set largely onboard the titular railroad. Much of this is due to the fact that he finally decided to pay attention to the quirky little details that previously distinguished his lighter films, Next Stop Wonderland and Happy Accidents. This is especially true in the first half of the film, in which the central couple (nicely played by Emily Mortimer and Woody Harrelson) begins making their way across Russia on the train. At the beginning, very little about their journey goes wrong, but small things contribute to a sense of unease- a disagreeable stewardess, the awful music (The Captain and Tennille) that plays constantly in their cabin due to a broken on/off switch, and so on. Naturally, by the time a friendly English-speaking couple (Kate Mara and Eduardo Noriega) boards the train, Harrelson and Mortimer are quick to make friends, despite Mara’s seeming reluctance and Noriega’s overly-insistent manner. From here on out, the inconveniences begin to worsen, but Anderson’s filmmaking is so assured here that they never feel over-the-top, even after one of the characters commits a serious crime. Everything felt more or less plausible to me, and this wouldn’t have been possible had Anderson not taken the time to really establish his central characters. Another element I liked was that it was Mortimer, not Harrelson, who really drove the story. Harrelson is fine here, cast against type as a nerdy train enthusiast. But while most thrillers would no doubt turn him into an action hero in the final reel (I chuckled when he remarked, “I dropped my glasses!,” anticipating this turn of events), his utility is limited largely to finding a means of escape and a fairly exhaustive knowledge of trains. But it’s Mortimer who carries the story. This isn’t a story where she gets them into trouble and he has to get them out- she ends up doing both, and in the process keeps her husband somewhat in the dark for large portions of the story. Much of the movie deals with the idea of owning up to one’s actions and being truthful to one’s spouse, which makes the climactic scene of the film somewhat disappointing, since it’s never clear that she really fesses up to what she’s done to Harrelson. Still, despite the slight letdown in the final reel, Transsiberian is nonetheless a highly effective old-school thriller, with plenty of atmosphere, a handful of really good surprise scenes, and absolutely no twist ending, which given all the bad thriller twists of late came as a great relief. Rating: 7 out of 10.

Trouble the Water (2008, Tia Lessin and Carl Deal)

2008-09-27T01:45:00.000-04:00

The intimate mirror image of Spike Lee’s expansive Katrina saga, Trouble the Water is best at putting what journalists would call “a human face” on the disaster. Of course, it was Lessin and Deal’s good luck that they hooked up with Kimberly Rivers Roberts and Scott Roberts early on. To begin with, there’s the matter of the video footage Kimberly shot herself. The famously grumpy Jeff Wells has complained on numerous occasions that her footage was “amateurish at best” and that she “should never be permitted to pick up a camera again.” Yet I think it’s this clumsy quality that makes her footage so wrenching. With a more assured hand on the camera, the footage would have felt professional, with shots properly framed for maximum impact. By contrast, the amateurishness not only “keeps it real,” but also gives her video footage a serendipitous feel- rather than a seasoned camera operator who plunged into the storm, Kimberly was in the right (wrong) place at the right time, and recorded the disaster because she thought someone should be there to tell the story. But the filmmakers’ good fortune also extends to the subjects themselves, a pair of “ordinary” 9th Ward citizens who prove to be compelling on-camera subjects. Kimberly and Scott may lack formal education and have less-than-savory pasts, but they’re intelligent and intensely verbal, and give voice to their discontents in colorful and expressive ways. They’re not “articulate” in that patronizing way that’s usually attributed to African-Americans, but they’re very good at making their points in conversation, with a no-nonsense manner of speaking that cuts right through the niceties. Moreover, choosing a pair of poor ex-criminals allows the filmmakers to show the pair rising out of the rubble of Katrina to better themselves. The film never makes it explicit that the tragedy has jolted them out of their lives, but it’s pretty clear that what happens to them both during and in the weeks after the storm works to sharpen their foci in life. Kimberly uses her fledgling music career to help bring to light the injustices she believes her people were subjected to by the government in the wake of Katrina. Less obvious but perhaps even more poignant is Scott’s path- an ex-criminal (we see old video of him brandishing a machine gun at one point), Scott eventually finds a job in construction, helping to fix up houses that were damaged by the flood, and he positively beams at the camera at having found a purpose and center for his life (oh, and fuck this guy in my opinion). On balance, I think I prefer Lee’s film- that’s a whole lotta movie, after all, and he handles it beautifully- but in its way, Trouble the Water is no less indispensible in its approach to one of the defining American events so far this century, one that definitively demonstrated (to quote Haven Hamilton) “how far we’ve come along ‘til now/ how far we’ve got to go.” Rating: 8 out of 10.

In Search of a Midnight Kiss (2007, Alex Holdridge)

2008-09-19T18:00:00.005-04:00

Holdridge pretty clearly had Before Sunrise on the brain when writing this, and while it’s not up to the standard of Linklater’s classic romance, it’s pretty compelling on its own. One big difference between the two films is the differences between the setups- whereas Jesse and Celine were able to cut through the getting-to-know-you crap because they were on a very tangible deadline, there’s the possibility of a future for Wilson (Scoot McNairy) and Vivian (Sara Simmonds). Consequently, there’s that idea that they might be testing each other- explicitly in the case of Vivian, more implied with Wilson. And this is why Vivian’s final actions throw Wilson for such a loop, as it turns out her goals aren’t nearly as similar as he’d hoped. With this, Midnight Kiss transforms a simple story of youthful romance into a study in the different reasons we seek it out. In addition, I liked the way that, unlike most romantic stories, the protagonists of this film were struggling financially- much of the date consists of the two walking and talking, Wilson takes his final $100 out of the bank to treat Vivian to a nice dinner, and Vivian ponders giving up on her non-starting acting career and moving back in with her mother. And amidst it all, McNairy and Simmonds make their characters specific and interesting. Wilson is clearly having trouble coping with the fact that his intelligence and creativity hasn’t gotten him as far as he’d hoped, while Vivian is one of those women we all know who steep themselves in style and irony to cover for their pain. The stuff between the two of them is effective enough that it’s dismaying enough when the film cuts to something else entirely. But occasionally, Holdridge will insert something so misguided into the story- Wilson’s flighty mom, Vivian’s violent-redneck ex-boyfriend- that the movie got downright frustrating (Linklater was wise enough to avoid this). Yet In Search of a Midnight Kiss is certainly worth seeing. One final note: I’ve slagged on DV and HD in the past, but I’ve got to say that I’m much more forgiving to black-and-white digital than I am to color. The unique textural qualities of the medium are much easier to appreciate without the smeary colors getting in the way. But whatever it is, it works perfectly here, which makes it all the more disheartening to hear that In Search of a Midnight Kiss has been showing in color on IFC on Demand and could very well be released on DVD the same way. So, word to the wise: if you rent this and it's not in b/w, turn the color off. You’ll thank me. Rating: 6 out of 10.

Chris & Don: A Love Story (2007, Tina Mascara and Guido Santi)

2008-09-19T18:00:00.002-04:00

The key to the film is right there in the title- it’s “a love story”, not “a gay love story,” or even “a different kind of love story.” That’s because the film essentially takes the idea that Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy were gay as its jumping-off point rather than its destination, to its credit. Since it gets the partners’ mutual sexual orientation out of the way at the beginning, it’s free to move on to other subjects, especially the age difference between the two, the experience gap that came from this, and the love that endured between them regardless of this. Of course, Isherwood was a literary celebrity, hobnobbing with movie stars and world-famous artists, and naturally Bachardy (thirty years his junior) would seem a bit out of sorts in this company. But whereas most people criticize such May-December romances by insisting that each is using the other (or worse, that the older party is "predatory"), Chris & Don shows us otherwise, at least in this particular instance. Part of this viewpoint comes from the fact that the film is Don’s story, and his gratitude for his 36 years with Chris plays a big part in his telling of it. Yet this was a truly loving couple, and as with any good relationship, there was real growth, at least on Don’s part. Instead of turning him into his “boy toy”, Chris encouraged Don to come into his own as an artist and a man, and eventually, while the Isherwood name opened doors for him, his talent could stand alone. And through the years, their love went through its various seasons, just like any other loving, lifelong relationship. In a way, Chris & Don may be the closest I’ve seen yet to a cinematic rebuke to the “defense of marriage” brigade- after all, wasn’t the complex but ultimately fulfilling love between Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy basically a marriage in every sense but legally? Chris & Don may be no great shakes as cinema (it passes D’Angelo’s test for movie-worthiness largely on the basis of Bachardy’s presence), but it’s a moving story because Chris and Don, for all their uniqueness, are much like any other couple you’d meet, gay or straight. Rating: 7 out of 10.

Burn After Reading (2008, Joel and Ethan Coen)

2008-09-12T18:18:00.002-04:00

One of the trademarks of practically all great comedies is that they hold up a funhouse mirror to human folly. And while I wouldn’t call Burn After Reading a masterpiece, it definitely fits in this tradition. To really appreciate the movie, one must recognize how self-absorbed nearly every single major character in the film is, and realize how well the Coens use the heightened drama required by an espionage plot to explode this all-around self-absorption. These people are so blinkered by their own egos that they can’t look around and see the shit storm they’ve stirred up.

Most obviously, Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich) is such a puffed-up prick he doesn’t realize how off-putting he is, and he’s so consumed with taking offense to others calling him a drunk that he can’t acknowledge his problem. But even a relatively benign character like Linda (Frances McDormand) isn’t immune- she’s obsessed with getting cosmetic surgery (“I’ve gotten about as far as this body can take me”) in order to attract the caliber of man she desires. This colors almost all of her decisions throughout the film.

And what’s going on with Harry, played by George Clooney? He cheats on his wife (who for reasons of her own doesn’t seem all that broken up about it) with Osbourne’s wife (Tilda Swinton), each of whom refers to the other as “a cold, stuck-up bitch” until we start to wonder if that’s Harry’s type. In turn, he cheats on them by hooking up with women he meets through the personal ads, including - you guessed it- Linda. Yet I don’t think he means any harm- he’s simply addicted to sex as an end in itself (look at the gift he makes for his wife) with little regard for the personal entanglements that can result. But then, he’s pretty oblivious all around, as evidenced by the severity of his reaction to an untimely surprise.

Of course, it goes without saying that Burn After Reading is impeccably acted- few filmmakers rival the Coens for their ability to get the most out of their actors. I’m thinking in particular of Malkovich, whose reptilian pomposity has rarely been effectively utilized, and Brad Pitt, who continues to demonstrate his knack for kidding his himbo looks by playing a gym rat whose general befuddlement quickly leads him to get in over his head.

Many of the film’s detractors have taken the Coens to task (yet again) for showing contempt toward their characters. But I don’t think it’s that simple. In many ways, this is a kind of comedy corrective to the self-righteous posturing of movies like Crash and Babel, with the Coens handling their characters’ travails with biting wit, rather than wailing and gnashing their teeth about human frailty and the impossibility of connecting with those outside our personal bubble. They’re cranky and misanthropic, but they’re also right, and the film makes its points in a way that’s both more entertaining and less pious than either of these bits of Oscar-bait.

Look at the film’s final scene, in which (after all the shit goes down) a pair of CIA agents, played by J.K. Simmons and David Rasche, tries to suss everything out only to throw up their hands in frustration. Like us, they can’t help but marvel at the huge mess that’s resulted from a relatively insignificant matter- blackmail, possible treason, bodies piling up- that has poisoned everyone it’s touched, even those rare people who’ve acted in a relatively selfless manner. I was reminded a bit of the faeries and spirits of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, who despite their role in the human characters’ misadventures are also detached enough to try to make sense of human messiness. “What fools these mortals be,” indeed.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

Frozen River (2008, Courtney Hunt)

2008-09-06T01:30:00.001-04:00

Most of the great suspense movies are founded upon necessity. When a character finds himself in a tense situation, it’s because he has to be there, not just because he’s looking for a little thrill. It’s only when the stakes are high for the people onscreen that the suspense really takes hold. Consider Ray Eddy, the protagonist of Frozen River, played by Melissa Leo. There’s almost no wiggle room in Ray’s life- her husband’s disappeared with the money that was earmarked for the family’s new double-wide trailer, her creditors are sniffing around, there’s barely any money left in the coffers (at one point she feeds her children popcorn and Tang for dinner), and Christmas is just around the corner. So the sudden appearance of the young Mohawk woman Lila (Misty Upham) who ropes Ray into an illegal-alien transporting racket looks like just the opportunity she needs to pull herself out of the rut into which she’s fallen. Naturally, much of the suspense of Frozen River stems from whether Ray and Lila will get caught, but I dare say that the film wouldn’t work nearly as well if the various parties who were closing in on Ray’s life weren’t illustrated so vividly. It’s certainly true that trouble can come to us all, but many of these troubles can be staved off with money, and Ray just doesn’t have it. So even when the family’s faced with something as simple as a frozen water pipe, the results can be disastrous. And that’s the true center of Frozen River- that for all its effectiveness as suspense, it’s really a movie about how poverty can back a person into a corner. Especially in a small town like Ray’s, a poor single woman has almost no options open to her, so when trouble comes knocking, everything can spiral out of control. Leo’s performance is pivotal, not a deglammed Oscar-grubbing star turn but nothing short of an act of empathy, inhabiting Ray without soft-pedaling how difficult she can sometimes be, especially when cornered. With a less convincing lead performance, we wouldn’t buy Frozen River for a second. But Leo never steps wrong, and that’s why the movie works as well as it does. Rating: 7 out of 10.

Man on Wire (2008, James Marsh)

2008-09-06T01:28:00.001-04:00

“It scares you when you don’t know / whichever way the wind might blow.”

One of the tricks to making a successful documentary isn’t simply finding a story that’s worth telling, but telling that story in a way that’s both cinematic and narratively involving. In that respect, Man on Wire is one of the best documentaries to come along in years. Of course, it helps to have a good story, and Philippe Petit walking a tightrope between the towers of the World Trade Center is a doozy. But if Marsh had simply taken a talking-heads and photo-montage approach, the result would be better-suited to a stylistically inert program on the History Channel. Instead, Marsh intersperses the usual documentary stuff with dramatic re-creations of the day’s events, structuring the story as a kind of caper film (the film’s tagline calls the incident “the artistic crime of the twentieth century”). It’s a daunting task, trying to wring suspense from a story to which we already know the outcome- Petit is interviewed for the film, after all- but ultimately the gambit pays off. That it does is in large part a triumph of filmmaking technique, as Marsh and his interview subjects do such a good job of getting us caught up in the procedural details and snags of the day that one almost forgets that the ending is a foregone conclusion. This makes it all the more effective when Petit finally gets out on that wire for his historic crossing. I think it’s also key that Marsh refuses to invoke the specter of 9/11 for this film- when Petit (an extremely engaging subject, it should be said) speaks of “conquering the towers,” his aims are edifying rather than destructive, and in the end, what makes Man on Wire such a vital film is that it reclaims, albeit briefly, the World Trade Center from the hateful ideologies that tore it down. Even if the incident was little more than a extreme stunt, it matters little in light of the quixotic genius of it, and Man on Wire stands as a testament to the lengths a man will go in order to pursue a mad, brilliant dream. Rating: 9 out of 10.

The Last Mistress (2007, Catherine Breillat)

2008-08-30T10:47:00.001-04:00

After specializing in on-the-nose feminist screeds for years, Breillat brings her trademark sexual politics to the period piece with fairly positive results. One of the most notable aspects of The Last Mistress is the clash between the morality of the film's period and a more contemporary view of sexual obsession. This is most explicit in the character of Ryno de Marigny (played by newcomer Fu'ad Ait Aattou), an upwardly-mobile young man on the eve of his wedding to a young woman of noble birth. But as Woody Allen once said, "the heart wants what it wants," but so does the libido, and the great tragedy of Ryno's life is that the two don't go hand in hand. So even though he legitimately loves Hermangarde (Roxane Mesquida), he can't help but be drawn to the titular mistress, played by Asia Argento. It's telling that Breillat doesn't even attempt to make Argento fit in with those around her, using her for her sexy-punk presence more than for her acting talent. This being a Breillat film, sexual desires win out over loftier goals of love. The Last Mistress isn't the change of pace for the director that some have made it out to be, but it's interesting seeing her pet themes translated to a new context.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

Boy A (2007, John Crowley)

2008-08-30T10:46:00.000-04:00

Boy A has a lot to recommend it- an affecting premise, a feel for Manchester working-class life, and above all fine performances from Andrew Garfield and Peter Mullan. Yet I’m conflicted about the movie as a whole, in large part because of its treatment of the protagonist’s past. As a story of a young man who wants to distance himself from the murder he committed as a child, I suppose it’s understandable that the movie would want to soft-pedal this aspect of his life in order to make Eric more sympathetic. Yet this also feels dishonest to me. If the movie was really serious about examining the contrast between Eric then and now, it wouldn’t shy away from the horror of his misdeeds. It wouldn’t give him a sob-story background- distant dad, sick mum- or paint him as an easily swayed kid who fell in with the worst friend possible (it strikes me as too easy to paint Philip as a bad seed while Eric was mostly just along for the ride). And it certainly wouldn’t cut away before the duo committed their heinous crime, but instead show us exactly what he did, the violence of which he was once capable. By failing to do this, Crowley and screenwriter Mark O’Rowe fail to really look at the gulf that separates the past version of Eric from the present version, now called Jack. Of course, it’s entirely possible that Boy A wants Jack/Eric to come across as a put-upon victim of people’s conceptions of his past, but making him a murderer without really facing the reality his crime is timid at best and irresponsible at worst. It’s too easy to demonize those who victimize him for his past. A braver film would force us to examine our own feelings about the character, to ask whether we can hate the sin but not the sinner.

Rating: 5 out of 10.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008, Woody Allen)

2008-08-22T18:17:00.000-04:00

As a once-rabid Woody Allen fan, I still feel compelled to watch all of his new films in the theatre. On the other hand, having been burned by a number of his late-period works (Jade Scorpion, Melinda and Melinda, Scoop) I know better than to expect a great deal from those new releases. On that basis, Vicky Cristina Barcelona is a nice surprise, with plenty of gorgeous location work to match one of Allen’s more interesting screenplays of recent years. The movie’s central premise- the freewheeling (read: European) lifestyle pitted against the upper-middle-class American marriage- feels overly programmatic in spots, with the European way coming strongly out of the gate. After all, the combo of studly Javier Bardem and crazy-sexy Penelope Cruz is hard to top, especially compared to Rebecca Hall’s cheesedick businessman fiancé, played by Chris Messina. But if the match seems uneven at first, it begins to make sense near the end, when Hall’s marital malaise coincides with the emotional explosion of Cruz’s rekindled relationship with Bardem, which leaves Hall conflicted, and sort of floating between the two worlds, now dissatisfied with both (the story ends on a perfect tentative note). And if you notice I haven’t mentioned Scarlett Johansson yet, that’s not an accident- Vicky Cristina Barcelona is her third film with Allen, but the first in which she seems somewhat tangential to the story, which of course is a good thing. Here she has little to do besides provide an outsider viewpoint into the relationship between Bardem and Cruz, so that we know what Hall’s getting into before she does. In addition, Johansson’s essential blankness only serves to underline the tumultuous emotional current generated by her Spanish bedmates (it’s only when the scene is really about Johansson that she founders). As for the other principals, Bardem is reliably sweet and Cruz is a firecracker, but it’s really Hall’s film, and she’s more than up to the task (click here for more effusive praise). Vicky Cristina Barcelona is hardly top-tier Woody, but it’s his best film this century, and definitely worth a look. Rating: 6 out of 10.

My Winnipeg (2007, Guy Maddin)

2008-08-17T23:51:00.003-04:00

While I've enjoyed a number of Guy Maddin films and flat-out loved a few of them, I wouldn't necessarily consider myself a Maddin fan outright, largely because in many of his works, his style tends to wear thin by a certain point, around the time it begins degenerating into a schtick. However, just the thought of his 2003 film Cowards Bend the Knee makes me absolutely giddy, and My Winnipeg is damn near as good, which leads me to believe that Maddin's movies work best for me when they spring from somewhere in his subconscious, buried though the personal stuff might be under layers of cinema-drunkenness. So it is in My Winnipeg, which is just as quirky as anything Maddin has directed, but also feels semi-confessional, as though Maddin is giving us a good long look into the memories and fever dreams that were inspired by the city he has always called home. Of course, as tends to be the case with any vision as singular as this one, there are bound to be some literalist wags who question the veracity of this so-called documentary. Surely, they'll say, Maddin is taking severe liberties with history, fabricating wholesale a legendary Winnipeg that has never existed, comprised of "ever-opiating nuns" and ice-choked horses and "man pageants." To which all I can say- aside from "have you ever SEEN a Guy Maddin film?"- is this: look at that title again. Just like Fellini gave the world his Roma, so Maddin gives the world HIS Winnipeg, and all the fantastical wonderments it summons in his mind. It's key that Maddin describes the two dueling taxicab companies, one servicing the marked roads, the other the alleyways. Maddin's interest has always been in the alleyways- of cinema, of civic history, of his own mind. Yes, the Winnipeg history that has been committed to paper might not include half the legends that Maddin has formulated for it, but that doesn't matter one damn bit. His Winnipeg- where the Black Tuesdays patrol the ice long after the Jets have left town, where sleepwalkers steal into their old homes protected by city law, and where Guy's mother (who despite the director/narrator's claims of veracity is played- pricelessly- by Detour's Ann Savage) looms as large in the city's soap opera as she does in Guy's life- might not exist anywhere but his own mind. But damn if it isn't a great place to visit, even if you wouldn't necessarily want to live there. Rating: 8 out of 10.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008, Dave Filoni)

2008-08-15T00:17:00.003-04:00

Ever since the days of Walt Disney, animated films have appealed largely to family audiences, and most movies that have appealed to adults have done so for a limited audience of fans, generally of Japanese anime. But there's always been some degree of hope that a movie might emerge that transcends the usual kids/nerds audience to pull in a mainstream, grown-up audience. I suppose one couldn't blame me for thinking The Clone Wars might be that movie, seeing as how the Star Wars imprimatur has always guaranteed box office, even with the shabby prequels of the past decade. However, I underestimated how much the franchise has been pitched to children in recent years, something that has long left Star Wars curiously bloodless and sanitized. So while there's a certain thrill in seeing the Star Wars universe freed from the corporeal realm into the freer format of animation, The Clone Wars is still very much a product, slavishly engineered to sell video games and toys. Worse yet, it turns the saga that has captivated three generations into the space-opera equivalent of a Disney Channel sitcom, giving Anakin a sassy female apprentice name Ahsoka who refers to her new master as "Sky Guy." Blech in my opinion. In addition, much like the "prequel trilogy", the story gets entirely too bogged down in intergalactic politics, as if the negotiation over trade routes through the Outer Rims was what drew millions of people to Star Wars in the first place. I suppose the best thing I could say about The Clone Wars is that it's better than Attack of the Clones, but I mean jesus, it'd pretty much have to be. But if you're looking for a true breakthrough in non-kiddie animation, you'll have to content yourself with Ratatouille, a movie I'm still not convinced was actually made for children. And bless it for that...

Edited 8/18 to add: The more I think about this, the more I hate it. It's not simply that the filmmakers take the Star Wars mythology as the springboard for a bit of third-rate fan-fiction, then sell it to a crowd who's clearly clamoring for more Star Wars-y goodness. It's also that it's numbing (the action sequences go on forEVER), cut-rate (the backgrounds are OK, but the characters are stiff and un-pleasing aesthetically), and worse yet, soulless. The biggest problem with the prequels- worse even than the shitty dialogue and overly glossy effects- is that the human element that made people fall in love with the original movies just isn't there. The major characters in the prequels are almost all Jedi, which gives them cool powers that can be exploited to full effect with modern CGI, but also places them on a different level than normal everyday humans. One major reason the original films worked is because the human audience had non-Jedi characters to serve as surrogate characters. It's the reason Han Solo was such a fan favorite- not only was he super-cool, but he was savvy enough to fight alongside the Jedi, even if he didn't share their powers. But there's none of that here, merely a boring Jedi and his annoying apprentice, who keeps saying stupid shit like calling R2D2 "R-twoey." Gag me. Honestly, when the laws of physics don't apply to your characters, you'd better make them really damn interesting if I'm supposed to care. And man oh man does this movie ever fail. Rating: 3 out of 10.

Tropic Thunder (2008, Ben Stiller)

2008-08-14T23:57:00.002-04:00

There are few more masturbatory genres than the showbiz satire. It's not unlike the semi-inexplicably popular blog Stuff White People Like, in that the group that's ostensibly being ribbed is actually getting congratulated on how cool they are. This goes double for Hollywood satires, since they're invariably made by those with power within the moviemaking system, which affords them a comfortable enough position to get away with playfully gumming the hand that feeds. Short of honest-to-goodness blood-drawing satires like Sunset Blvd. or The Player, most movies about moviemaking succeed or fail on the basis of entertainment value, and in that respect, Tropic Thunder works pretty damn well. Which basically means that I laughed a lot. You won't gain much new insight into the ins and outs of the studio system or the nuts and bolts of big-budget filmmaking, but it's funny stuff. Much of this can be credited to Stiller the director's willingness to go as far as it takes to get laughs. Years of safe, family-friendly twaddle have no doubt given him an itch to push the envelope of good taste, and thank goodness for that. But while racially-dicey plot points or newly-controversial scenes involving Stiller as "Simple Jack" might seem politically incorrect to a fault, it's all in the service of a story that time and again sticks it to those whose lives have kept them at a distance from the mores and standards of the outside world. Likewise, Stiller thankfully distributes the good stuff to his (highly talented) cast- a heroin-addicted low-comedy star played by Jack Black, a John Milius-esque screenwriter played by Nick Nolte, a trigger-happy explosives guy played by the suddenly ubiquitous Danny McBride, and the cheerfully vulgar (in every way) studio exec played by SPOILER Tom Cruise END SPOILER. But best of all is Robert Downey Jr. as Kirk Lazarus, the obsessive Method actor who comes off as a cross between Russell Crowe's mannerisms and Daniel Day-Lewis' acting style. Kirk's pigmentation operation might have come off as a shameless schtick in less capable hands, but Downey makes Lazarus into a fully-functioning character- which of course makes him even funnier. Not all of Tropic Thunder works- after a while the plot doesn't matter as much as the movie thinks it does- but it's mostly a blast, containing at least one bit of shocking laughter as memorable as the gas-station fight in Zoolander. The movie's no classic, but I won't lie to you- I damn near laughed until my eyes started raining. Rating: 7 out of 10.

Pineapple Express (2008, David Gordon Green)

2008-08-09T01:15:00.002-04:00

One thing that bugs me about most "pot movies" is how cartoonish the main characters tend to be. It's strange- despite these movies' appeal to a pot-friendly crowd, most of the protagonists come off as wacky stereotypes who get bug-eyed and nuts whenever they toke up, not unlike the players in Reefer Madness and its ilk. One of the most refreshing aspects of Pineapple Express was that, for all the craziness that happens, Dale (Seth Rogen) and Saul (James Franco) mostly come off as a couple of regular guys who enjoy smoking marijuana. This helps the movie avoid many of the standard pitfalls of the genre, in particular the semi-obligatory "hallucination" scene in which the imagery gets psychedelic and the music blares, just so you know how spaced-out the pot-smokers are feeling. Instead of visualizing the experience of being perpetually stoned, Green and his stars give the movie a laid-back vibe befitting the protagonists' chemically-facilitated shared mental state. They still get carried along by the plot, but at their pace, rather than the tricked-up pace of a movie that aches to get them from one misadventure to the next. The misadventures that do befall them are sort of uneven, but when the movie is on, it's ON. I'm thinking in particular of an uproarious fight scene involving Rogen, Franco, and perpetual scene stealer Danny McBride, in which none of the participants looks like they've thrown (or taken) too many blows in their lifetimes. Naturally, this makes for some priceless comedy, especially when the fighters begin looking for random objects to hurl at each other. I also liked the fact that the movie actually took time to explore the dynamic between the two hit men (Kevin Corrigan and a hilarious Craig Robinson) who are tailing the heroes. I'm sort of conflicted about the movie's final action sequence, which for all intensive purposes places the heroic trio in the middle of a low-rent 80s-style action movie. It's funny to watch the clearly overmatched characters try to fight off the more experienced villains, but it gets sort of numbing after a while. Still, in spite of its flaws (which are many), there's plenty of fun to be had at Pineapple Express, and the laughs that come courtesy of Rogen, Franco, Robinson, and especially McBride make this well worth your time. Rating: 6 out of 10.

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor (2008, Rob Cohen)

2008-08-07T23:47:00.001-04:00

I know I’ll take some flak for this, but I enjoyed the hell out of the 1999 Mummy remake. Great cinema it’s not, but it’s got a Velveeta charm that goes down easy, and no goals other than showing the audience a good time (any movie that begins with its leading lady knocking over a library full of book shelves clearly isn’t aching to be taken seriously). However, the sequel The Mummy Returns is a bloated mess that doesn’t have nearly enough fun with itself, and unfortunately the latest installment in the series, The Mummy: Curse of the Dragon Emperor, is closer to the spirit of the second film than the first. It’s an OK time-waster, but not much more than that.

Part of the problem here is that it actually expects the audience to care about the domestic difficulties in the O’Connell family- Rick (Brendan Fraser) and Evie (Maria Bello) have seen the excitement drain from their marriage ever since they’ve retired from mummy-hunting, while college-aged son Alex (Luke Ford) doesn’t get along with his dad. Are we meant to see these storylines as anything more than perfunctory excuses to give the characters something to talk about when they’re not fighting off undead baddies?

Fraser, to his credit, maintains the right spirit- he’s never been a great actor, but he’s always been at ease working with special effects, and he’s good at winking at the story when need be. But Bello’s incarnation of Evie feels out of place here. As an actress, I prefer Bello to her predecessor Rachel Weisz, but whereas Weisz demonstrated a comic verve that turned the character from a standard-issue damsel into sort of an eccentric, Bello instead makes Evie a tough babe who can fight alongside the boys. More politically correct, certainly, but not especially entertaining either. And if Bello’s character feels out of place, Ford’s just doesn’t work at all. It doesn’t help that Ford is under the impression he’s meant to be a straight-up action hero here, which sort of throws a wet blanket over the proceedings.

In many ways, Tomb of the Dragon Emperor is the most ambitious entry in the series, beginning with establishing the film’s Chinese setting (Egypt is an obvious fit with mummies, but history-deficient audiences need a little more convincing when you move them elsewhere). But while Cohen goes to great lengths to situate his story in a Chinese context, it’s rarely convincing, thanks in no small part to subpar special effects. The Mummy impressed me with its CGI back in the day, but here the effects look shoddy and cartoonish. The problem with this is that the movie clearly wants us to be awestruck by the magnitude of the undead armies or the scope of its far-flung locations. Unfortunately, there’s a high-gloss sheen on practically everything that was computer-generated, and it’s difficult to be enraptured by something that’s obviously made out of 1s and 0s. Tomb of the Dragon Emperor is a step above The Mummy Returns, but it’s still pretty shabby goods, and I’m hoping the film’s abrupt ending means that the series has finally drawn to a close.

Rating: 4 out of 10.

The Dark Knight (2008, Christopher Nolan)

2008-07-25T18:16:00.001-04:00

Batman, more than most comic-book heroes, has always been about dichotomies- Batman vs. Bruce, good vs. evil, law vs. order, and so on. But all too often, the series has either expressed these themes in the broadest of terms or smoothed them out to the point of becoming negligible. Thankfully, Nolan plays a different game than his predecessors, exploding the existing dichotomies and throwing in some others for good measure. Nolan’s Batman (Christian Bale) is still a hero, but it’s questionable how much of a good guy he is. Raymond Chandler once wrote, “down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean,” but Batman can be awfully mean at times, and get his hands dirty. More than once in The Dark Knight, he makes morally questionable decisions (such as monitoring every cellular phone in the city) in the name of doing good. The Dark Knight poses the fascinating question of whether we’re able to deal with that.

Most superhero movies square their protagonist off against a nefarious counterpart, but The Dark Knight has more on its mind than a hero/villain showdown. For much of the film’s running time, Nolan contrasts Batman/Bruce with district attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), newly elected with the goal of bringing Gotham City’s criminals to justice. The two men have similar goals, but while Batman lacks faith in the system to accomplish his desired end, Dent is the face of that very system. Even though he admires the swift justice administered by the Dark Knight, Dent positions himself as “the white knight,” seeking to eliminate crime through due process. If Bruce Wayne is a pragmatist, Dent is a seemingly incorruptible idealist, a point driven home by his Obama-esque campaign slogan, “I believe in Harvey Dent.”

For a while, Dent’s brand of justice works, cutting a large swath through Gotham’s criminal underworld. But all this changes once The Joker (Heath Ledger) enters the picture. We first see The Joker in the film’s opening scene, staging a robbery on a mob-owned bank only to kill all of his cohorts and escape, alone, with the cash. The Joker isn’t like the other villains prowling the streets of the city. Whereas the established crime syndicates live by their own codes and rules (and have made arrangements with the police in order to survive), The Joker’s sole purpose in life is to stir up anarchy- to leave the populace of Gotham teetering on the edge and let them push themselves over.

Heath Ledger’s Joker has gotten a lot of attention from the press since his death, but I think the character would be one of the great villains even if were still with us. To begin with, Ledger is a far cry from the statelier style of Jack Nicholson. Whereas Nicholson’s Joker was too similar to the Jack persona to be truly scary- more kooky uncle than stone-cold psycho- Ledger immerses himself fully in the character, making him a knife-wielding punk-rock criminal mastermind.

Like Shakespeare’s Iago, this Joker is evil, pure and simple, and every mocking attempt on his part to provide a context or rationalization for his actions only underlines how reductive such rationalizations are when they’re presented seriously in other films. It’s a genuinely disturbing performance, not least to my Knight’s Tale-loving girlfriend. But at the same time, there’s something fiendishly pleasurable about the way Ledger operates in the role, from his delivery of the line, “no, I kill the bus driver” (and its priceless aftermath) to his final fade out. Ledger is in rarefied territory here, joining a murderer’s row- ranging from Alex DeLarge to Daniel Plainview- of irredeemable heavies we can’t help but love.

One of the most fascinating aspects of Nolan’s screenplay is the way he integrates probability problems and game theory into the storyline. Time and again characters are forced to play the odds in order to make a difficult decision. Many of the Joker’s threats carry a heavy price- to name one example, Batman can turn himself in, or the Joker will kill one person every day until he unmasks himself. Or the film’s climactic sequence, in which Nolan employs a variation of the classic game theory problem The Prisoner’s Dilemma to pit two ferries full of people against each other.

But again, Nolan isn’t just showing off here, but setting up perhaps his most important dichotomy- choice versus chance. For all his love of justice, Harvey Dent believes in luck, jokingly flipping a two-headed coin whenever he has to make a tough decision. But when he’s horribly disfigured by an accident (causing him to become “Two-Face”), this belief in chance takes on a deadly undercurrent, as the lives of those who’ve wronged him rests on a coin flip, Anton Chigurh-style.

By contrast, Bruce- who of course is a “two-face” himself- represents choice. As long as he continues fighting crime by night, a happy life with his true love Rachel (Maggie Gyllenhaal) will be out of the question (can it be a coincidence that Rachel is not only Dent’s current girlfriend but also a prosecuter herself?). Eventually, he must turn his back on the police department and the populace itself in order the catch the Joker. And in the end, Batman takes the rap for Two-Face’s crimes in order to protect the good name of Harvey Dent. In other words, he inverts the prisoner’s dilemma- rather than letting Dent take the fall in order to free himself, he chooses to become a fugitive and face the maximum punishment. This decision affirms not only Bruce’s sense of morality, but his humanity as well. It’s a bold choice, but a necessary one, allowing the city to keep its white knight even while it turns on the dark one.

The Dark Knight isn’t quite a perfect comic book movie- the action sequences are too haphazardly-directed for that- but it lingers in the mind far more than more conventionally exciting superhero movies can hope to do. Unlike most movies of its kind, the film carries a real feeling of danger, as Nolan isn’t afraid of exploring some terrifying areas most movies wouldn’t touch, even killing off more than one significant character in the interest of thematic resonance. Most blockbusters feel like fairy tales- there’s some tension, some suspense, but in the end the bad guys are punished and everyone lives happily ever after. But the events of The Dark Knight will change- even scar- the characters forever. The Dark Knight isn’t just a classic comic book movie, but a pretty great movie in general, and I can’t wait to see it again.

Rating: 9 out of 10.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008, Guillermo Del Toro)

2008-07-19T00:55:00.002-04:00

One of the reason so many self-professed "geeks" feel a degree of affection toward Guillermo Del Toro is because he's always been something of a geek's geek, in that his work is clearly fueled by fanboy favorites like fantasy fiction, comic books, and classic fantasy movies. As much as anything by Peter Jackson or the genre films of Sam Raimi, Del Toro's films appropriate the highlights of his pop-culture-steeped youth (a touch of George Lucas here, a pinch of Ray Harryhausen there) while doing so in a way that makes the work feel inimitably his, rather than simply the sum total of his influences. Hellboy II is in keeping with this tradition, and while the film is a big-budget summer blockbuster, Del Toro hasn't had his creativity hemmed in, but rather has used his greater resources to create as many magnificent beasties and visual splendor as any film he's made to date. Some critics have complained that Del Toro's primary talent lies in creature design, but with so much creative richness on display it seems churlish to complain. Yet these detractors aren't exactly wrong either. While Hellboy II is awash in visual splendor, the human elements of the movie aren't up to that standard. Many of the more potentially dramatic elements in the narrative- the rivalry between Red and Agent Manning, the romantic subplot involving Abe and Princess Nuala, Red's conflicted relationship with the human race- are ignored for large chunks of time rather than exploited as they might have been by a more assured storyteller. The biggest casualty is the love story between Red and Liz, which should have been poignant but just kind of lays there for a while when Liz takes some time away and Red promptly gets drunk and sings Barry Manilow songs with Abe. It doesn't help matters that Selma Blair is too blank-faced and stilted to make the character work, and when Liz is supposed to be upset she mostly just comes off as a pouty high schooler, whether she's on fire or not. I was also disappointed by the new character of Dr. Johan Krauss, who is an intriguing idea (a sentient, super-intelligent gas being) but doesn't really work onscreen, partly due to the Sig Rumann-esque vocal stylings of Seth MacFarlane, creator of the godawful animated sitcom Family Guy. For his part, Ron Perlman is as perfect for the title role as ever, although it takes a while for Del Toro to really give him much to do here. Still, I enjoyed Hellboy II as a whole, and frankly I loved it in parts, especially when Del Toro really allows the audience to drink in the inventive visuals (the puppet-based prologue, the aftermath of the fight with the Elemental, the Star Wars cantina-inspired Troll Market). I anticipate the possibility of Hellboy III with a certain amount of pleasure, although if it does happen, I hope Del Toro has the good sense to find another co-writer to really keep the screenplay focused. Rating: 6 out of 10.

WALL*E (2008, Andrew Stanton)

2008-07-12T01:03:00.000-04:00

(Originally written for a work newsletter)

Disney and Pixar Animation Studios have made another winner with the new computer-animated film WALL*E. Set in the distant future, the movie tells the story of a little robot, the Waste Allocation Load Lifter, Earth-Class (or WALL*E). WALL*E spends his days roaming the abandoned landscape, cleaning up the trash left by the people who’ve abandoned the Earth. Centuries of sifting through human garbage have made WALL*E intensely curious about the planet’s former residents, and he keeps a collection of “treasures” in order to study them. Then one day, a ship descends from space bringing another robot, the sleek, ultra-modern EVE, whose mission is as mysterious as her origins, and who eventually becomes WALL*E’s friend. But when the ship returns to take EVE away, WALL*E sneaks aboard as well, and goes on a journey beyond anything he could have possibly imagined.

As you might guess from the plot synopsis above, WALL*E is not your standard-issue kids’ movie. Since their founding in the 1980s, Pixar has always been committed to expanding the possibilities of animation, and WALL*E continues their almost unprecedented winning streak. In many ways, WALL*E may be their boldest and most experimental movie to date. To begin with, the story doesn’t rely on a comfortable plot so much as it tells a story, seeing its hero’s experiences almost entirely through his eyes as we follow him on his travels. The effect is disorienting at first- the movie doesn’t give us any more information to work with than WALL*E himself would get. Likewise, the story features surprisingly little dialogue, especially from WALL*E and EVE, who have few words at their disposal. But if you’re willing to pay attention and give the movie a chance, your patience will be richly rewarded.

Like all of Pixar’s movies, WALL*E is a feast for the eyes. The early scenes on Earth are wonderful- I could have watched another half-hour or so of WALL*E going about his daily routine- and the animators pack them with all sorts of perfect little sight gags. But the movie’s cleverest visual surprises occur once WALL*E travels into space. I won’t spoil any of them here, except to say that the world WALL*E encounters is a far cry than most movies’ speculations on the future. WALL*E is above all a work of true vision and imagination, one that’s sure to captivate children and adults alike.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

Kung Fu Panda (2008, Mark Osborne and John Stevenson)

2008-07-12T01:02:00.000-04:00

(Originally written for a work newsletter)

Martial arts has a new legend in Kung Fu Panda, the latest family-friendly blockbuster from Dreamworks Animation, who previously gave the world Shrek. Kung Fu Panda tells the story of Po, a roly-poly panda who finally gets the chance to realize his dreams of kung fu glory, and much of the reason why the movie works is because of Jack Black’s vocal performance in the lead role. Black’s natural exuberance can be hard to harness in live-action roles, but it’s perfectly suited to the childlike, overly enthusiastic Po. Also good is Dustin Hoffman, who voices the role of the wise but skeptical Master Shifu, but the other recognizable names in the cast don’t get a whole lot to do. Why cast a star like Jackie Chan if you’re only going to give his character a handful of lines?

Of course, anyone who is even remotely familiar with kung fu movies (or movies in general, really) will be able to successfully predict where the story is headed. But the movie is entertaining enough that you probably won’t mind. And kids will eat it up- the 7-year-old boy sitting next to me certainly did. Compared to other Dreamworks Animation releases, Kung Fu Panda is surprisingly free of wholesale pop culture references, to say nothing of the bodily-function humor that has become a far too common hallmark of family entertainment. The slapstick humor about Po’s weight gets a little out of hand at times, but in the end it serves a purpose, as our hero learns to accept his size and even use it to his advantage in the kung fu tradition. But the best parts of Kung Fu Panda are the action sequences, which are unimaginable in live action. The tradition of animators bending the laws of physics to their own ends goes back to the Road Runner, and here the filmmakers take advantage of the medium to create exciting (if impossible) fight scenes. All in all, Kung Fu Panda is not a great family movie, but it’s a lot of fun for kids, and surprisingly entertaining for adults as well.

Rating: 6 out of 10.

Get Smart (2008, Peter Segal)

2008-07-12T01:01:00.000-04:00

(Originally written for a work newsletter)

Popular TV secret agent Maxwell Smart makes the jump to the big screen in Get Smart, starring Steve Carell in the role immortalized on television by Don Adams. The movie is entertaining, but it’s also an uneasy mix of silly comedy and slam-bang action that doesn’t always work. Part of the problem may be the summer release date, a time when the movie has to compete with mega-budgeted spectaculars, causing the filmmakers to inject special effects and action scenes in order to keep up. However, the action almost always gets in the way of the funny stuff, causing the movie to drag in spots. This is especially true near the end of the movie, when Max and his partner Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway) are called upon to save the world. Whereas an out-and-out comedy like The Naked Gun took its climactic scenes to almost surreal extremes to uproarious ends, Get Smart plays its plotline fairly straight. As a result, the movie never quite pays off as it should.

That said, a lot of the movie is pretty funny, in an agreeably silly vein similar to that of the original series. Hathaway has little to do but play straight (wo)man to Carell and look great, both of which she does fairly well. Terence Stamp’s super-villain is a bit of a bust, a victim of the filmmakers’ unwillingness to give him anything funny to do. However, other supporting cast members make more of an impression, especially Dwayne Johnson as the hotshot Agent 23, and the ever-priceless Alan Arkin as the unflappable Chief. But it’s Carell who owns the movie, mostly by treating the role of Max as an engaging character rather than simply a schtick. Carell may be the most talented actor among the current crop of funnymen, and he’s quite good here, resisting the urge to mug for the camera like, say, Steve Martin in the Pink Panther remake. Carell gives an honest-to-goodness performance here, turning what it other hands might have simply been a bumbling idiot into a kind of everyman who always means well, even when the results are disastrous. Max made me laugh, but I also genuinely liked the guy, and as a result I liked GET SMART enough to make me wish it had been better than it actually was. As Max himself would say, “missed it byyyyyyyy… that much.”

Rating: 5 out of 10.

My Blueberry Nights (2007, Wong Kar-wai)

2008-07-12T01:00:00.000-04:00

If nothing else, My Blueberry Nights makes for an interesting critical exercise, asking Wong fans to ponder the question of whether Wong’s romantic dialogue is easier to swallow in subtitle form, or if new collaborator Lawrence Block pushed it over the top into abject ridiculousness. Either way, the dialogue is merely one factor in the ultimate failure of the film. Another is the lead performance by singer-turned-actress Norah Jones- the character is written as a passive observer anyway, and Jones lacks the gravity or comfort in front of the camera to really make this work. She never quite manages to engage with her costars, and it’s hard to care about her she seems less like she’s listening than waiting to say her next line. Similarly, Wong doesn’t do his supporting cast any favors- the only one with even a fraction of Tony Leung’s soul is David Strathairn’s drunken cop, but in the end he falls prey to Wong’s inertly romantic vision. It should go without saying that the images are ravishing- not simply for the colors but also the graininess of the film stock- but instead of the seductive qualities they carry in Wong’s best work, they merely hold you at a distance here, inviting you to marvel at their beauty rather than pulling you into the story. Put it this way- as I longtime blueberry pie fan, I was curiously unmoved by the repeated shots of the tasty dessert, even with ice cream slowly melting over it. And friends, that just ain’t right. Rating: 4 out of 10.

Hancock (2008, Peter Berg)

2008-07-12T00:33:00.003-04:00

Certainly not the best blockbuster to come down the pipe this summer, but this is almost undoubtedly the strangest. Starts off with a bang, although not in the way you might expect, as Will Smith's reluctant superhero stops a violent crime in progress but leaves a whole mess of destruction and ill will in his wake. Victor is right on in spotlighting the way the film's first hour is primarily a prickly pro-interventionism allegory and satire of guilty-liberal bugaboos- it's so apparent you couldn't even call it subtextual- and it's bracing to see a big-budget summer movie that's not only unabashedly political but successfully works it into the narrative rather than simply paying it lip service. Hancock (that name, I mean duh) is called upon to clean up crime only to be vilified by the people when he doesn't make it pretty or heroic-looking, only to be called back into action when he's put out of commission for his infractions. I'm not remotely the biggest supporter of American militarism out there, yet I'd be lying if I didn't find this part of the movie surprisingly engaging. However, about an hour into the story (following the logical conclusion), Berg and distributor Columbia Pictures suddenly remember that they're trying to make a big summer tentpole superhero adventure, and everything starts to go to hell. After an intriguing, unexpected reveal, we're subjected to a subpar take on the usual formula- the origin story, the moments of doubt, the vulnerability, and finally the hero rising to the occasion. Unfortunately, Hancock doesn't work nearly as well as a loud, self-important superhero spectacle as it does as the satire its early scenes would lead one to believe it is (not sure which is worse, the lame-ass ending, the lame-ass villain, or the awful performance by Charlize Theron). What's more, Berg has no idea how to handle the twists the script throws at him and the tonal shifts that result from them. The most egregious example of this (SPOILER) is the fallout from the unveiling of Theron's character as one of Hancock's fellow superheroes. To begin with, it's not nearly as big a twist as the film makes it out to be, since Berg relies far too heavily on seemingly unmotivated closeups of her staring skeptically at the unkempt superhero that hubby Jason Bateman has brought into their lives. And once it's happened, the movie kind of goes to hell. This is most apparent in a scene where Smith and Theron zip around downtown L.A., fighting like a couple of petulant children. Ideally, this scene is funny because the two of them are obviously on another plane of existence and their issues are out of scope with the mortals who surround them. So when they fight, obviously they'll leave destruction in their wake. However, Berg never gets the scope of the scene right, thus killing the comedy, and the scene becomes nothing more than a series of loud, punishing effects. (END SPOILER) The movie doesn't get much better from there, finishing in a warm-fuzzy ending that it hasn't earned and which doesn't begin to satisfactory wrap up the story. It's a shame- what started as perhaps the summer's best surprise quickly turned to disbelief and, finally, disappointment, and that's not the kind of ride you want to get from a blockbuster. Rating: 6 out of 10, although it's more like a split decision between 8 and 4.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008, Steven Spielberg)

2008-05-18T23:17:00.001-04:00

After a nineteen year hiatus, everyone’s favorite whip-cracking archeologist is back in INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL. First things first- yes, Harrison Ford is just at home in the role as he ever was. The movie wisely moves the story into the 1950s, which allows Ford to play his age, making Indy older, wiser, and crankier than we’ve seen him before, but while he has lost a step or two he’s still a great action hero. Likewise, the new time setting for this adventure gives him a new group of villains to contend with- now, instead of Nazis they’re Soviets, headed by diabolical officer Irina Spalko, played by Cate Blanchett, who’s clearly having a ball. Spalko isn’t an especially complicated character- she’s basically there to chase Indy and go after the titular skull, but she certainly makes an impression, and is on par with the best previous Indy villains. The other important character is Mutt, a motorcycle-riding kid played by Shia LaBeouf, who ropes Indy into the quest without knowing who exactly he is. The rest of the film’s supporting characters aren’t so well-drawn, although it is nice to see Karen Allen again, looking surprisingly like she did in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. However, John Hurt’s character is given exactly one note to play (Crazy Crystal Skull guy), and Jim Broadbent, as Dr. Jones’ new boss, pales in comparison to his predecessor Marcus Brody, played by the late Denholm Elliott. Worst of all is Ray Winstone, typically so magnetic, whose largely gratuitous role consists of him switching allegiances at the drop of a hat.

CRYSTAL SKULL also suffers from a little too much story- not merely that unfortunate recent Spielberg tendency to cross all the t’s and dot all the i’s, but also too much exposition about the legend of the skull. While RAIDERS and LAST CRUSADE both had easily recognizable MacGuffins, the Crystal Skull mythology is obscure and convoluted, leading to too many scenes in which characters have to stand around and explain what it’s all about- TEMPLE OF DOOM, to its credit, more or less forgot its artifacts altogether. There’s also about two too many endings- pretty good by recent Spielberg standards- and a somewhat hit-and-miss deployment of references to previous installments in the series (my girlfriend enjoyed the Ark shout-out somewhat more than I did). However, I did like the similar motivations of a few of the characters during the climactic sequence- not only a nod to the climax of RAIDERS, but also the way another character’s downfall was caused by his greed, like Elsa in CRUSADE. And of course, the action scenes more than deliver. Spielberg still has a gift for classically-styled action scenes, and there a couple of doozies here, in particular a car chase/fight scene through the jungle, that are refreshing in the way he shoots them primarily in nice long takes that allow the action to play out before our eyes. INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL isn’t a classic like some of the previous Indy films, but it’s certainly worthy to stand beside them, and certainly worth the price of admission.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

Speed Racer (2008, The Wachowski Brothers)

2008-05-06T22:43:00.002-04:00

The seventies cartoon cult classic revs its way onto multiplex screens this weekend with Speed Racer, the latest film by the Wachowski Brothers, who created The Matrix. Whereas that film and its better-left-forgotten sequels were pitched mostly to teenagers and young adults, Speed Racer is more of a family movie. But don’t let that fool you- aside from some kid-friendly business with Speed’s little brother and his pet chimpanzee, this is anything but a cutesy kids’ movie. Instead, it’s a high-powered action adventure, featuring a charismatic lead performance in the title role by Emile Hirsch (last seen in last year’s Into the Wild) and some solid supporting performances, particularly from John Goodman as Speed’s car-builder dad and Matthew Fox (from TV’s Lost) as the mysterious Racer X. But the real stars of the movie are the visual effects. The Matrix pushed the envelope for effects technology nine years ago, and Speed Racer does it again, creating a candy-colored world of visual wonderment (word to the wise: sit up close and let the movie wash over you). Whereas most effects-heavy movies tie themselves in knots to make their worlds realistic, Speed Racer goes the opposite direction, sending its cars jumping, spinning, and flying in ways that defy every conceivable law of physics. In lesser hands, this would feel cheesy, but not here. Yes, the racing scenes in Speed Racer could never be possible in the real world, but it’s a testament to how entertaining the movie is that I wished they could.

But what really sells Speed Racer is how completely it embraces the absurdity of its premise. Like the Matrix trilogy, this is a story about a “chosen one”- I mean, duh, the kid’s named “Speed Racer,” like he could be anything else. But the Wachowskis never make the mistake of bogging the story down with any more significance than it can bear. Even the heavier stuff in the film- the race-fixing subplot, the backstory involving Speed’s dead brother- is played broadly, so as to fit into the live-action cartoon world that the brothers have created. And really, it’s the eye-candy that makes the movie soar, making it easier to forgive the occasional sop to the family audience. Speed Racer isn’t without its issues, but it’s also such a rush that they hardly matter. Suffice it to say that I enjoyed the hell out of the movie, even if it was only the second-best thing that happened to me today.

Rating: 8 out of 10.

Iron Man (2008, Jon Favreau)

2008-05-01T00:12:00.000-04:00

The summer movie season gets off to a roaring start with Iron Man, a big-screen adaptation of the Marvel comic book series. Iron Man isn't a household name like Spider-Man or the Incredible Hulk, but this is no cut-rate superhero movie. The film, directed by actor-turned-filmmaker Jon Favreau, is both funny and exciting in the tradition of the best superhero adventures. But while the studio spared no expense bringing the film to life, its real ace in the hole is star Robert Downey Jr. in the lead role. Much like Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean, Downey reveals himself as a bona fide movie star in Iron Man, showing real charisma without sacrificing any of the infectious unpredictability that's made him such a fascinating character actor. Downey is so good as Iron Man's alter ego Tony Stark that it's almost disappointing when he disappears behind the suit... almost.

But what makes Iron Man an irresistible character is that he's in almost every sense a self-made hero. Most obviously, there's his powers, which derive not from natural means or some strange twist of fate, but largely through his own ingenuity. He flies, stands up to heavy fire, and fights with superhuman strength because he invented the means to do so. But in a deeper sense, he's a hero because he chooses to be one. It's key that Tony Stark is quite a bit older than most comic book heroes. No babe in the woods, he's lived through a lot, and is floating through life aimlessly buoyed only by his money. His kidnapping jars him out of this inertia and leads him to build the original suit out of necessity. This, in turn, reinvigorates his sense of purpose, to quote another recent Downey character. Seeing the destruction and despair that his weapons have caused, he instead uses his formidable intellect and almost inexhaustible means for good, and once he's chosen that path there's no going back. I think it's interesting that once Stark has decided to devote his life to heroic endeavors, there's never any angst about it- he's seen the light, and isn't the least bit conflicted about it. It's also telling that there's never any real hand-wringing about his decision by his assistant-turned-love-interest Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow)- once she finds out, she's concerned for his life, but she also respects the decision he's made. More than most comic book movies, Iron Man genuinely believes in the possibility of heroism, and for that reason alone it's well worth seeing. Well, that and it's a lot of fun.

Rating: 7 out of 10.

The Counterfeiters (2007, Stefan Ruzowitzky)

2008-04-26T21:33:00.002-04:00

I hate to be one of those writers who makes snarky comments about how the Academy's Foreign Language branch can't resist Holocaust movies, but movies like The Counterfeiters just make it so damned easy. The film takes as its inspiration a fascinating footnote to World War II- the Third Reich's attempts to counterfeit American dollars and British pounds by enlisting Jewish prisoners- but unfortunately it's not quite sure how to handle the story. There's an uneasy mix between the Holocaust aspect of the film and the moral quandary at its center. The film attempts to ask the question of whether it's better to survive in the face of evil or to risk your lives to try to bring it down. However, in its attempts to address the question, the film becomes curiously cold, and once the counterfeiters begin their work, there seems to be very little in the way of a serious threat to their lives. A lot of this is inherent in the story itself- the counterfeiters are isolated from the rest of the prisoners and made to feel safe, all the better to do their work. Yet the film gives almost no sense of the world outside their comfortable little world, aside from a few glimpsed or overhead instances. I can imagine a more rigorous filmmaker making this story work, but Ruzowitzky isn't inspired or intellectual enough to really pull it off. As a result, the film's eventual solution to its question is a fairly uncompelling compromise, which finds protagonist Salomon Sorowitsch (Karl Markovics) cooperating with the Reich as long as he can and then sticking it to them after he thinks he can get away with it. In addition, the story turns into a strange bit of hagiography for the character of Adolf Berger (August Diehl), who wrote the novel on which the film is based and is painted as the story's true hero, having resisted the Reich from the beginning and whose efforts to delay the production of counterfeit dollars helped- in the view of the film- to cripple the Reich economically and led to their defeat. To me, that explanation feels too tidy, and if there's one thing a movie like this really shouldn't be, it's tidy. I sort of respect what the film is going for, but for me it's a near-miss. Rating: 5 out of 10.

Chop Shop (2007, Ramin Bahrani)

2008-04-26T21:13:00.003-04:00

It's a measure of how far "neo-realism" has come in the past six decades that films that fall into the category are much less concerned with tidy narrative structure and stabs at social concern than with unvarnished portrayals of difficult lives. Freed from the need to couch its storyline in a message, Chop Shop is primarily a character study, and it succeeds mostly by giving us a window into the life of its protagonist, Alé (played by Alejandro Polanco). Alé is a young Latino, about 12 years old or so, whose life is spent in the relentless pursuit of money. As a young immigrant with no parents to speak of, he spends most of his days doing what he can to get ahead, making the most of his natural hustler's confidence and gift of gab. What's most striking about the film is that we get very little background into his life, yet we find out everything we need to know through his actions. Alé spends most of his days surrounded by adults, particularly those who work in the chop shops in the Queens neighborhood where the film is set, and like any kid he wants to like them because he only sees the freedom that comes with adulthood and overlooks the responsibility. But unlike most kids, he doesn't see the commitments of adulthood because he's taken on most of them himself already- making the money he needs, keeping himself fed and sheltered, saving for the future. Mostly, what Alé wants is to be treated with the respect the adults in his life receive, to be truly a part of the world rather than in the outsider position that's afforded children. He wants to be treated as an equal, rather than someone who's just there as cheap labor, as when his boss (and makeshift landlord) curtly admonishes him for counting his money in front of him. Alé is more streetwise than anyone his age really ought to be, but his youth also makes his prone to the occasional child's mistake, as when the food truck he's saved up to buy for him and his sister turns out to be a wreck. Alé and those around him live lives unimaginable to most of the film's viewers, yet the film never becomes a wallow or a tale of woe. In fact, the only thing that keeps Chop Shop from being a really top-notch film of its kind- like the works of the Dardenne brothers- is the spiritual and religious undercurrents of their stories, which tend to give them the feel of hardscrabble Biblical parables. But then, I don't think that's Bahrani's goal, and he's one of the few American filmmakers who has successfully captured the lifestyles of poor immigrants in our large cities. And really, I'd say that's enough. Rating: 7 out of 10.

The Animation Show 4 (2008, presented by Mike Judge)

2008-04-26T09:49:00.002-04:00

Since their beginning of The Animation Show four years ago, I've been a supporter of their goals- to bring animated shorts by established and up-and-coming animators to theatrical venues in order to educate moviegoers in the diversity of the medium. But while the previous years have showcased some fascinating work, 2008's crop was pretty thin. I'm such a lot of this has to do with the increasing numbers of animated shorts programs that have gotten released in theatres since TAS's inception- for example, no Oscar nominees are included this year, probably because they just played two months ago with the Oscar shorts program. But I wonder if the dip of quality might also be reflective of TAS founder Don Hertzfeldt's lack of involvement this year. Between his artistic cachet and Judge's marquee value and particular brand of comedy, the first three programs struck a worthy balance between art and entertainment, showcasing everything from new short films by Bill Plympton to gorgeous, deadly serious works like last year's Overtime. But without Hertzfeldt on board this year, the balance has tipped toward snarky, wiseass comedies. Sure, there's still some art in the proceedings, although these films aren't of the caliber of previous years- there's an occasional keeper like Georges Schwizgebel's Jeu, a geometric, Escher-inspired short about human leisure. But most of the arty stuff is flashy and soulless, like Animation Show regular PES's Western Spaghetti and BIF Productions' Raymond. Meanwhile, a large percentage of the funny stuff is more loud and shrill than humorous. The introductory short, Joel Trussell's fittingly-titled Show Opener, feels like little more than a lo-fi homage to the priceless beginning of the Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie. In addition, for the first time this year, several of the animators contributed series of shorts, which unfortunately are among the most tiresome on the program. Usavich, a Japanese CGI series about a pair of silent bunnies, is flashy but never entertaining; Dave Carter's Psychotown series plays like an Australian version of Terrance and Philip but quickly wears out its welcome; and Corky Quackenbush contributes Yombi the Crotch-Biting Sloup, which has little going for it other than the title. There's the occasional genuinely funny short film- the low-key Operator and Nieto's live-action/animation combo Far West are pretty fun- but not enough. All in all, there's not enough good stuff to wholeheartedly recommend this year's incarnation of The Animation Show. If Judge wants to compete with the other theatrical animation programs out there, he'll have to try harder next time around. And distribute it on film like he used to, for that matter. Overall rating: 5 out of 10.

Married Life (2007, Ira Sachs)

2008-04-22T20:09:00.002-04:00

There are many fans of Sachs' last film, Forty Shades of Blue, out there, but I wasn't really one of them. Consequently, I found Married Life to be a real leap forward for him stylistically. What really stuck out to me was how lightly he treads on his period setting- rather than using it like Far From Heaven to comment on the widely-accepted conventions of the times, Sachs' approach is far more subtle. Rather than taking the approach of breaking open the squeaky clean mores of the fifties- with the shocking (SHOCKING!) revelation that all is not well with Ward and June Cleaver- Sachs' characters are all fairly good characters who are teetering at the edge of a more modern, Freudian style of self-actualization. At several points in the film, characters repeat the line, "I can't let our happiness be built on the unhappiness of another," and to me that's the key. For many in our contemporary society- with its self-help tomes and overanalysis- self-centered happiness is seen as the acme of existence, and anything that impedes this happiness is seen as counterproductive to the forward progress of our lives. But in a marriage, such self-centered questing is more than callous- it's the antithetical to the idea of the marriage oath- "for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, as long as you both shall live." Not being married, I can't speak from my own experience, but from what I do know, the marriages that last aren't the ones who've never experienced difficulty, but rather the ones who've been able to weather the storm. The characters in Married Life stand astride these two ideas- the modern-day need for happiness and the old-school commitment to making a successful marriage. Even the single characters- Rich (Pierce Brosnan) and Kay (Rachel McAdams)- respect the latter, even as their efforts appear to push the marriage of friends Harry (Chris Cooper) and Pat (Patricia Clarkson) apart. Rich is particularly surprising- what appears on one level to be a self-serving flirtation with Kay (who begins the film as Harry's mistress) ends up helping his best friend as much as it does him. And at the center of the film is the strange and ultimately touching love story that takes place between Harry and Pat, two characters who seem to exist at cross purposes but who care about each other too much to cause the other any pain. The murder plot in the story is a little too literal an expression of this in my opinion, but it ends up leading to a lovely- and it must be said, impeccably acted- climax in which the two stand in separate rooms, a closed door between them, and reckon with their improprieties while they try to mend what they've almost lost. As a portrait of a man learning to love his wife, it isn't nearly the equal of The Age of Innocence, but it's well worth a view. Rating: 7 out of 10.

Note by Note: The Making of Steinway L1037 (2006, Ben Niles)

2008-04-18T21:02:00.003-04:00

One of the strengths of cinema that other media can't touch is its ability to show, in detail, how an act is performed. Sadly, this procedural aspect is too often neglected, especially by fiction filmmakers, who are all too eager to move the story forward. However, when it's done right, I'm fascinated. It's one of many reasons why I love The Son, it's why I prefer the first half of United 93 (with its detail re-enactment of how shit went down on 9/11) to the second, and it comprises the one scene in Zhang Yimou's otherwise risible The Road Home that had my full attention. With Note by Note, the procedural stuff is foregrounded for a change, as we follow the creation of a brand new grand piano from the lumber yard to the concert hall. All in all, a Steinway concert model requires roughly a year to make, a task that's accomplished with old-school hand craftsmanship. And through the process, we meet many people who are in charge of various aspects of production, from the guy who selects the wood to the men in charge of the "belly" of the instrument, to the technicians who put every piano through a battery of tunings. It's also interesting to see the makeup of the people who create the pianos- working-class types, many of them immigrants, all of whom despair that too few young people will carry on the tradition they've worked so hard to maintain. It's this tradition that attracts many gifted pianists to Steinway, and a "subplot" of the film finds renowned pianists- from jazz men Bill Charlap and Kenny Barron to concert pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard- testing out Steinway after Steinway to find the one with the character and timbre they want. With the human touch all over the making of each Steinway, there's no wonder that no two instruments are exactly alike, and this is appreciated mightily by those in the know. To the film's credit, we come to appreciate this as well, not simply because the people onscreen say so, but because when they test a room full of Steinways in rapid succession, the differences quickly become apparent. But whether you're Harry Connick Jr. (who also appears) or one of the lucky kids whose parents purchased them a Steinway during the factory sale we see in the film, there's no substitute for quality. I for one hope that the Steinway company is able to maintain their traditional methods for years to come. Rating: 8 out of 10.

Side note: Back in my piano-playing days, I had a huge crush on French concert pianist Hélène Grimaud, beginning when my mother took me to see her perform Chopin. Part of it no doubt had to do with the fact that she was probably the first young, hot female concert pianist I'd ever seen perform, but I was pretty smitten back then, and I found as many of her recordings as I could. Imagine my surprise when she turned up here, as delightful as ever. Will have to seek out some of her more recent albums and do some catching up.

Shine a Light (2008, Martin Scorsese)

2008-04-05T22:28:00.002-04:00

After a long career capped by his recent Oscar win, Scorsese has more than earned the right to make whatever he damn pleases. If he wants to do a large-format Rolling Stones concert film, that's fine. But while Shine a Light is entertaining, it's scarcely more than that, and its only real justification is that Marty always wanted to film a Stones concert. Perhaps it would have felt like less of a disappointment if not for the opening ten minutes- a montage of the frenzied preparations for the show, with Scorsese poring over obsessively detailed camera setups for all possible songs the Stones might perform while he sweats what the actual playlist might be. It's a mini-gem, with Scorsese placing it in a tiny square in the middle of the frame and filming everything in black-and-white. It's so much fun, and so jazzily-edited, that it sets up something big to come, but once the concert begins and the image expands to fill the frame (a great moment, by the way) it becomes a pretty standard-issue concert film. In fact, it's the extent to which Scorsese prepared that's part of what keeps Shine a Light from really soaring- because everything is so planned, there's little room for the little offhand moments and found shots that distinguish some of the greatest concert films out there. But then, I'd argue that the lack of stylistic surprises from Scorsese perfectly fit this concert, with Mick Jagger & Co. playing the hits everyone expects (except "Gimme Shelter" for some reason). Although everyone puts in a good day's work onstage- at twice my age, Mick is nimbler and more energetic than I can ever hope to be- they've played these songs too many times and for too long for them to hold any more surprises, either for them or for us. It's hard to argue with the songs themselves, although for my money the earlier stuff just doesn't sounds quite right with Ronnie Wood instead of Brian Jones or especially Mick Taylor. But aside from some good music and a handsome look, it's little more than a better-than-average concert film. That'd be enough for most filmmakers, but given the involvement of Scorsese and his Murderer's Row of cinematographers (Richardson! Lubezki! Toll! Kuras! Elswit! Dryburgh! Lesnie! Maysles!!!!), it feels vaguely like a squandering of talent. Still, well worth seeing if you dig the Stones- but then, who doesn't? Rating: 6 out of 10.