The Films of 2007 Ranked

There Will Be Blood has been the holy grail of the 2007 holiday season for a number of reasons. First and foremost among these reasons being that it is the return of Paul Thomas Anderson, a director who often seems like a unique example of a director with no real failures on his record. It had been five years since his last film, Punch Drunk Love, but even longer since his sprawling epic Magnolia. Added to this anticipated return, was the inclusion of Daniel Day-Lewis, a great actor who rarely takes parts that aren?t special. Also intriguing were the themes of oil and religion, two important topics today. But also intriguing was the fact that no one was really sure exactly what the film?s plot was. The cherry on top of all this intrigue may have been the film?s title, the film promises blood, but that blood mostly isn?t on screen, rather it flows through the veins of this major, important film.
The film centers on Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), an oilman in turn of the century California. As the film begins Plainview has struck oil and established an empire, but his partner is soon killed in a drilling accident. Plainview chooses to adopt the orphan son of his fellow prospector, and raise him as his own. About ten years later Plainview is wealthy, but not yet a millionaire. Plainview soon learns from a man named Paul Sunday (Paul Dano) of a promising oil prospect in a rural region of California. Plainview investigates this barren stretch of land and finds it to be more than a little promising. There is an ocean of oil under that land, and once Plainview begins drilling there, nothing will be the same.
What probably makes There Will Be Blood work so well is that it is completely unformulaic. So many movies today are so predictable that the viewers have a good feeling how the movie is going to end after twenty minutes. This is largely the result of screenwriters who make the mistake of listening to people like Robert McKee that teach people to put common elements into every film like a clear motivation on the part of the main protagonist. Robert Plainview has no clear motivation other than to make money, and his actions are rarly motivated by this. I made the pleasant discovery half way through There Will Be Blood that I had no idea where it was going, but that I desperately wanted to.
Primarily, the film is a character study. Plainview is a larger than life figure, a Nietzian great man if ever there was one. The man is a complete misanthrope; to him other people are like ants scurrying around him. The people who live in this California desert are an obstacle to him, one gets the sense that he?d happily kill them all and only doesn?t because buying them out is the path of least resistance. Plainview?s unique world view (which completely contradicts his name) does help him in creating an empire, but it ultimately proves to be a rather dangerous lifestyle. I would never give away what happens later in the film, but it becomes exceedingly clear that the direction that Plainview takes is not healthy.
Daniel Plainview is an almost Shakespearian character, it?s not a role that many people would be able to play. Luckily Daniel Day-Lewis is one of the few people in the world capable of tackling this material, and delivers yet another transcendent Day-Lewis performance. I thought that Day-Lewis reached his peak when he played Bill the Butcher in Martin Scorsese?s Gangs of New York, but I was mistaken. Day-Lewis is able to create this larger than life character but also make sure he remains a living breathing human. The way that Day-Lewis? delivers almost every line is interesting, and he can deliver a speech like nobody?s business. Most of the rest of the ensemble is forced to sweat bullets in order to catch up with Day-Lewis, and some of them, like that of Paul Dano can seem a bit weak in comparison.
The filmmaking here is top notch. Paul Thomas Anderson has long been accused of stealing other director?s styles (Scorsese in Boogie Nights, Altman in Magnolia), but those days are gone and I?m now fully confident that he is one of the great directors of our time. Cinematographer Robert Elswit shoots beautifully, especially in the harsh California sunlight. I did however have a problem with the cinematography during the darker scenes, I felt the film lacked some of the deeper blacks it should have had, although this may have been unique to my screening. The score, by Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood, is amazing. It was not just the type of grandiose music a conventional composer would create, but rather its great exciting music that takes the material onscreen and makes it even more exciting. This music really stands out, much like the rest of the film.
The film is being described as a story about oil and religion, in fact its thematically more about American capitalism. It was capitalism that gave Plainview power, and it was power that made him a god, and being a god drove him mad.

Millions of people use their vacation time to go camping every year. Outdoors recreation is almost a national pastime, one I?ve never understood. The comedian Alonzo Bodden pretty well summed up my opinion of the activity when he said ?Why the hell would I work hard all year to go out and pretend I'm homeless?? Interestingly though, Sean Penn?s new movie Into the Wild, manages to make me completely understand why someone with the exact opposite view of outdoors recreation went on a journey I would have thought insane.
Based on the Jon Krakauer?s non-fiction account of the same name, Into the Wild documents the journeys of Christopher McCandless AKA Alex SuperTramp (Emile Hirsch). McCandless, a rebellious and slightly bitter youth, set out on a cross country adventure in the mid-90s that ultimately lead him to the Alaskan wilderness. McCandless came from a troubled, yet privileged, home. Before his trip McCandless had graduated from Emory University with twenty thousand dollars in the bank and a promising law career in his future. McCandless however had developed a strong negative view of society as materialistic and shallow. Inspired by the writings of Leo Tolstoy and Jack London, McCandless ventured out through the back roads of America.
Penn?s Into the Wild is in many ways an episodic journey, the bulk of the movie shows McCandless Odyssey which brought him to places like Carthage, South Dakota and Slab City, California. McCandless would hitchhike across the country and go on adventures like an unlicensed kayak trip through the Grand Canyon into Mexico. Along the way he met all sorts of kooky people who helped him like a Jan and Rainey Burns (and Catherine Keener Brian Dieker), relics of the Hippie era who see a lot of themselves in Alex Supertramp. He also runs across a farmhand/conspiracy theorist named Wayne (Vince Vaughn), and an old man named Ron (Hal Holbrook) who possibly wishes he had spent his life adventuring as McCandless has.
All the people he meets try to impart some advice to him and perhaps would have convinced him to return to a life of normalcy, but they, like the audience, are eventually won over by McCandless? persistence of vision, his striving for a pure life along the lines of Thoreau. This striving and persistence of vision unfortunately is also McCandless? tragic flaw. Had McCandless? stuck to a Jack Kerouac style road adventure he may have moved on in life and, like the young Che Guevara of 2004?s The Motorcycle Diaries, gone on to greatness. Unfortunately McCandless was too successful in his journeys, too well supported and too over-confident, he eventually found himself in the Alaskan wilderness and over his head.
The film is not all about McCandless? pre-Alaska journeys, the film jumps between those journeys and his climactic stay in Alaska. The film uses the voiceover of McCandless? sister Carine (Jena Malone) who gives insights into the childhood that influenced McCandless? while also exploring the dark side of his journey. These segments show the trauma McCandless did to his parents (William Hurt and Marcia Gay Harden) by running off without telling them his plans or so much as calling them.
Into the Wild is one of the best character studies I?ve seen in quite a while. Many will not like McCandless as a person and the movie doesn?t demand you to. This is a complex person that would be hard to understand for someone like me who doesn?t like to go outside to so much as water my lawn. On paper the guy seems like a complete dipshit, yet this movie makes me wish I had such experiences. You have no idea what kind of talent it takes to make me want to be someone like this.
The story here may remind many of the 2005 Werner Herzog documentary Grizzly Man. This is an understandable as both films feature passionate, idealistic, young men in the Alaskan wilderness heading for disaster. However, there are major differences between Chris McCandless and Timothy Treadwell. While Treadwell had a similar passion and held a similar distain for modern society, he also suffered from delusions of grandeur and ultimately seemed borderline insane. McCandless had no such delusions, he was more of an adventurer than a naturalist. McCandless saw the Alaskan wilderness more as a challenge than as a home and he had no intention of staying there.
While Treadwell descend into misanthropic anger, McCandless? anger was aim squarely at society rather than those who live in it. McCandless maintained a definite respect for those he met along the way, he was not trying to escape from people but from institutions. It is a mistake to view McCandless strictly as a rebel; he?s more of a tourist than an iconoclast. McCandless truly enjoyed the way he was living. There are shades of Quixote in McCandless, he may seems insane to some, but he?s just living the way he wants to live.
I haven?t had the privilege of seeing any of the other movies Emile Hirsh has acted in, so this was the first time I?ve seen him act. As this movie centers squarely around a single character it is important that he be played by just the right actor. Hirsh definitely delivers here and Penn was wise to cast someone like Hirsh who was experienced but also a little off the radar of the average cinema attendee. Hirsh is not chewing scenery or showing off here, he giving simple naturalistic acting, it?s the type of invisible acting many might not notice. If anything Hirsh should be congratulated for pulling off some of McCandless? more pretentious character traits and keeping them from hurting the perceptions people have of him. The rest of the cast is great too, especially William Hurt and Marcia Gay Harden who, along with a smart script, keep McCandless? parents from seeming like stereotypes.
The real star here however is Sean Penn as a director. Penn is of course an Oscar winning actor known for his roles in everything from Mystic River to Fast Times at Ridgemont High. I had missed Penn?s prior outings as a director, and was shocked at just how talented he was behind the camera. This is clearly a labor of love for Penn, and there is an obvious respect for the source material. Penn quotes directly from Krakaur?s non-fiction book; going so far as to divide the movie into chapter titles and putting handwritten diary entries onto the screen John Madden style. These non-digetic elements give the story a well needed reminder of its authenticity, as this is most definitely one of those stories you wouldn?t believe if it wasn?t all true.
The scenery here is breathtaking; from the tundra of Alaska to the rapids of the Colorado River, to the deserts of California and the beaches of the Pacific Northwest, McCandless manages to see so many beautiful things. The film doesn?t use or need showy cinematography; it simply films beautiful images and lets nature impress you. The viewer completely understands why McCandless continues on his trek despite some less than pleasant setbacks.
These wonderful images are accompanied by a perfect soundtrack featuring original music by Eddie Vedder, the famous lead singer of the Seattle grunge band Pearl Jam. This solo work by Vedder does not sound like the heavy rock of the band he?s famous for, which I love incidentally. Rather, Vedder delivers a number of folksy down to earth tunes. I don?t know if this music would stand up when listened to on an album, but it fits perfectly within the movie. I would be very surprised if one of these songs didn?t end up with an Oscar nomination.
I had no idea Sean Penn would emerge as such a good filmmaker. It?s likely that author and co-screenwriter Jon Krakaur deserves a large part of the credit as well. This is a wonderful film that inspires and touches the viewer at the same time. It is a character study on one level, an adventure story on another level and ultimately a tragedy by the end. It is a great true story told in perfect cinematic language. I certainly hope Penn doesn?t give up acting, as he?s one of our best thespians, but with Into the Wild as evidence I can safely say I want to see anything Penn decides to do as a filmmaker after this.

The Coen Brothers have always been filmmakers I?ve had mixed feelings about. On one hand they?ve made a lot of movies I really love like Fargo, Blood Simple, and The Man Who Wasn?t There are all favorites of mine. As much as I love these darker, more dramatic works, I tend to tune out whenever they make comedies like The Hudsucker Proxy, O Brother Where Art Thou, or even Raising Arizona. Basically anytime they decide to make a glorified parody of an old film genre with John Turturro, John Goodman, and Steve Buscemi I tend to find myself underwhelmed. The Big Lebowski is the notable exception to this; I simply find that movie a lot more funny than the above mentioned works. Generally I find the Coen Brothers to be auteurs almost to a fault; I?d probably enjoy their work a lot more if their stamp wasn?t all over every frame of their work. Thankfully, the new film from the Coen brothers, No Country for Old Men, manages to completely avoid each and every problem I have with this filmmaking duo?s work. It not only stands among the darker films of their cannon that I named before, but it rises above almost all of them, it?s not just a great Coen Brothers film but a great film in general.
The film takes place in rural Texas and centers on Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin), an ordinary man who stumbles upon a drug deal gone wrong while hunting in a secluded prairie. Amidst the carnage of the crime scene he finds a case filled with two million dollars. Moss, takes this opportunity and grabs the money, but as the films tagline reads ?there are no clean getaways.? Moss quickly finds himself in a cat and mouse chase with an absolutely ruthless hitman named Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) who will stop at nothing to recover this money. As Chigurh tracks Moss, a Sherriff named Ed Tom Bell (Tommey Lee Jones) is on the trail of the entire situation.
That description makes this sound like a simple thriller, this is not entirely accurate. The film is indeed a thriller, and a great one at that, but there?s more going on here than can really be described through mere plot summery. The film is an adaptation of a novel by the Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Cormac McCarthy. McCarthy?s novel seems to generally be considered a solid work, but overall a minor entry in the acclaimed author?s cannon. I haven?t read the novel, but it comes as no surprise to me that this film comes from literary origins. This is one of those rare films that seem to have the scope and gravitas of a full novel, but without the type of decade spanning such a description would suggest.
The main themes of the film are violence and greed, the same themes that run through the Coen?s Fargo and Blood Simple. This is the most refined and deep look at these themes the Coens have yet to create. These themes are embodied by the two main components of the film?s central chase, Moss and Chigurh.
If nothing else, the film will be remembered for creating one of the greatest villains in cinema history, that of Anton Chigurh. Chigurh, as expertly played by Javier Bardem, is like a hurricane of destruction. He?s a cold, ruthless killer whose single minded pursuit of his victims makes him an almost unstoppable force. Chigurh is like a hurricane of violence; he goes straight for his target and destroys everything in his path without so much as thinking. Only through sheer luck can this force of nature be escaped, as he occasionally allows his victims to live if they correctly call a coin toss. All this ruthless efficiency is placed into a singularly bizarre physical specimen of a human. Bardem is given an off putting 70?s style haircut and speaks in a completely out of whack accent. What the Coens seem to be doing is trying to keep this mindless violence from looking cool, by making the bringer of this carnage look like a dork.
The mouse in this chase is Llewelyn Moss, as played by Josh Brolin. If Chigurh represents violence in this tale, Moss represents greed. He?s an everyman who comes across an opportunity, takes it without thinking, and finds himself in a world of trouble. Brolin?s performance is not as showy as Bardem?s, but his work is almost as important. This performance is like the cherry on top of a great year for Josh Brolin. Brolin has been acting in films for more than twenty years, but is only now having a breakout year with performances in Grindhouse, In the Valey of Elah, American Gangster and of course No Country For Old Men.
As important as Bardem and Brolin are, it is Tommy Lee Jones as Sheriff Ed Tom Bell who ultimately holds the film?s success on his shoulders. It is this Sheriff who goes through the greatest transformation in the story, he is the old man that this is no country for. This frankly seems like the role Tommy Lee Jones was born to play, he?s the perfect actor to be playing this aging, grizzled, but also somewhat sensitive Texas sheriff. The character is like a cross between the determined U.S. Marshal of The Fugitive and the principled modern cowboy of The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada. He?s the main deliverer of some of the film?s profound dialogue, his monologues in the film are of great importance and it is Jone that makes them fully believable.
No Country for Old Men is so rich in sub-text that I almost don?t feel qualified to comment on it after only one viewing. The film delivers profound and sophisticated messages in a blue collar setting. It?s quite likely that McCarthy?s novel is the main reason for this, from what I?ve heard this is an extremely faithful adaptation. This faithfulness is likely also the reason this may not work for all audiences, particularly during the film?s third act. I will not give the ending away, except to say that it is not a conventional cinematic catharsis. This ending could be compared to the finale of ?The Sopranos,? in that it?s an ambiguous ending that will drive closed minded audiences insane. I was initially a bit dumbfounded by this closing shot, but it has stayed with me since I saw it. It?s a bold, interesting way to end a film; it stays focused on the film?s important themes and avoids pandering to commercial interests.
Though McCarthy may be the one responsible for the film?s rich sub-text, it?s the Coen Brothers who are responsible for bringing this story to the screen so wonderfully. This is a film that manages to have its cake and eat it too, throughout. Manages to be subtle yet over the top, profound yet exiting, and perfectly mixes moments of black comedy with moments that are dead serious. While being a deep meditation on violence, this film is also an extremely well made movie with moments of gripping suspense. This is the Coen Brother?s most suspenceful film since Blood Simple and is flat out one of the best thrillers to come out since Spielberg?s Munich.
It should probably be noted that this is a very violent movie. The Anton Chigurh character is a ruthless character that dispatches people through very brutal means. Early in the film he strangles a cop with a pair of handcuffs, later he blows people?s heads off with a compressed air tank, and also wields a shot gun. As a result this is a very bloody film with a very high body count. Those squeamish about such material should probably avoid the film. That said this violence is not gratuitous and serves what is over-all message about the destructive effect violence has on society.
The Coen Brother?s filmmaking has never been better than it is hear, this is a very technically proficient film from a pair of talented auteurs. Roger Deakins? vivid cinematography perfectly captures both the vast Texas prairie and the run down motel rooms that reside on it. More important than that however is the subtle editing by ?Roderick Jaynes? (a pseudonym for the Coens themselves) that allows the film to go at a relaxed pace while never feeling slow. The film?s framing consistently feels perfect, and when the violence kicks in it feels perfectly choreographed.
One would generally be hard set to find anything wrong with No Country for Old Men, it may be the best film the Coen brothers have ever made. This is a film I feel compelled to go out and see again, which is something I rarely find myself doing. All that said, I will warn potential viewers that this is a very challenging movie and not something I would recommend to everyone without some reservations. If what you seek is pure entertainment, there are probably other movies out now that will be more up your alley. However, if you are looking for a nearly flawless movie that will challenge you and keep you on the edge of your seat, this is the one to see.

Competition at the 2006 Cannes film festival was more fierce than usual. Many of the movies getting Oscar buzz later that year were in competition. Among the contenders were Babel, Fast Food Nation, Volver, and Pan?s Labyrinth. But when the awards were handed out on May 28th the film that walked away with the Palm d?Or was Ken Loach?s drama about the Irish War for Independence The Wind That Shakes the Barley. Unlike many of the losers at Cannes, The Wind That Shakes the Barley did no get distributed for Oscar consideration in late 2006, instead it got a small blink and you?ll miss it release in March of 2007. Now, more than a year after it won the prestigious award, I?ve finally gotten a chance to catch Ken Loach?s drama on DVD.
The film takes place in the early twenties in Ireland, during the War for Independence. The film opens on a shocking scene where English ?Black and Tan? soldiers disrupt a meeting of Irish youth and murder one of them for refusing to tell them his name in English. Damien O?Donovan (Cillian Murphy) is a pacifist who finds such acts of martyrdom to be futile and destructive. But when he witnesses another act of English violence he finds himself drawn to join his brother Teddy (Padraic Delaney) in the IRA. At this time the IRA more closely resembles a guerilla army than a terrorist organization. The film follows the brothers throughout the Irish war of independence and into the Irish Civil War that followed the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, a conflict that would place the two brothers on opposite sides of war.
This film works on one level as a great history lesson. I must admit a certain level of ignorance about the Anglo-Irish conflict depicted here, I knew conceptually of a group known as the IRA that did a number of bombings throughout the 70?s, 80?s, and 90?s, but knew nothing of the group?s origins that are shown here. I found this to be a fascinating exploration of the era. Loach clearly has negative feelings about the British occupation, but never takes sides as to whether violence is the correct way to deal with the problem. When the civil war comes one can easily relate to both those who want to cut their losses and live in peace and those who want to continue their fight for complete freedom. Loach consistently manages to find interesting ways to handle historical exposition throughout, like one scene where we quickly understand the affects of the Anglo-Irish treaty of 1921 and the people reaction to it by watching an audience react to a newsreel of the event.
The movie is no dry history lesson however; it also presents a great human drama. The characters in this film are three dimensional and well developed. The characters we meet at the beginning are very different by the end. One is reminded of Steven Spielberg?s excellent 2005 film Munich in that both films must deal with the character?s reactions to violence in terrorist situations and their frustration when violence only starts to beget violence. The difference here is that it is coming from the point of view of the ?terrorists? rather than the army. When the two brothers find themselves on opposite side the view knows that we?re heading for tragedy. This is the stuff of Irish folk ballads like ?Danny Boy?, in fact it id from one such song that the film gets its name.
The film also works on one further level as an allegory for the state of world affairs today. The parallels between this conflict and the current war in Iraq are uncanny. Ireland in the film is occupied by a well armed foreign force being fought off by a resistance group which could easily be called an insurgency. The film also serves as a chilling warning of what happens when a new state government is left to take over a state filled with angry people who are still ready to fight.
Loaches camera work is not flashy, this is not what you?d call ?bravura filmmaking?, but this in many ways works in the film?s favor. The film?s deceptive blandness prevents it from artificially glorifying either side of the conflict. The violence depicted here goes against many modern conventions of screen violence. The killings are in no way stylized, nor are they artificially ?gritty?, they are simply matter of fact. Loach does not glorify the violence or go out of his way to make it look horrible; there is surprisingly little blood here which is unusual for a film trying to show the ?horrors of war.? The result is a brilliantly un-manipulative affair.
I?m not sure if I would have given the Palm d?Or to The Wind That Shakes the Barley given the competition, then again maybe I would. It is a very well written and intelligently crafted film about a very interesting subject. The film works on many levels and could inspire a lot of interesting debate. A great film from a veteran filmmaker.

There have been many films made about handicapped people overcoming the odds and making a good life for themselves. Most of them are sappy ?inspirational? garbage designed to appeal to Hallmark greeting card readers. The Diving Bell and Butterfly is a film that takes similar subject matter and attempts to make a real work of art rather than a sentimental fluff piece.
The film tells the true story of Jean-Dominique Bauby (Mathieu Amalric), the successful editor of Elle Magazine, who at the age of 43 had a massive stroke and found himself paralyzed from head to toe. After this debilitating stroke, Bauby was left with only his left eye under control. Bauby eventually comes to terms with the state he?s in and find a system to communicate with in which a nurse list off the alphabet and he blinks when they get to the letter he wants. Bauby eventually decides to write an entire memoir using this system, the memoir on which the film is based.
A lesser film would take the perspective of Bauby?s doctor, physical therapist or wife. Such a choice would have resulted in an inability to truly emphasize with the film?s real protagonist: Bauby himself. To fully put the viewer in Bauby?s shoes the film?s first act is almost entirely from his point of view. The camera becomes Bauby?s eye, it turns as his eye turns and when he blinks the viewer sees it as well. This would seem like a very claustrophobic technique, and indeed it is, but to a good end. The viewer really comes to empathize with Bauby and realize his plight.
Eventually Bauby comes to accept his situation; at this point the camera moves away from his point of view and the film take a more conventional third person style. Oddly, once you begin seeing Bauby as he has become, he becomes even more sympathetic than he was during the claustrophobic point of view parts. It?s hard to judge Mathieu Amalric?s performance, as he has the challenge of performing with only one eye. It?s hard to tell how much of his work is raw human performance or how much is makeup. The film does have a number flashbacks with Bauby in his former glory, and Amalric is fine during these portions.
Other good performances can be found from Marie-Josee Croze as Bauby?s physical therapist and Emmanuelle Seigner as the mother of Bauby?s children. The real acting highlight however comes from the legendary Max Von Sydow, who plays Bauby?s 92 year old father. Sydow is only in two scenes but he really steals the show, the second scene is particularly touching.
The man most responsible for the success of this film is the New York film director and professional artist Julian Schnabel. A lesser filmmaker would have done everything in his power to try to emphasize the tragedy of Bauby?s situation and/or the triumph that was his ability to write the book. Schabel, however, realized that Bauby?s story spoke for itself and decided to simply tell the story as best he could, then let the audience come to their own conclusions. The result is a beautiful movie that tells an inspiring story in a way that never feels schmaltzy or insults its audience?s intelligence. In the wrong hands this flm could have been as bad as such disability movies as Children of a Lesser God or Radio. Instead what is delivered is a film more in the tradition of Jim Sheridan?s My Left Foot or Alejandro Amenábar?s The Sea Inside.
Like My Left Foot, the film never makes the mistake of turning its main protagonist into a saint simply because he?s disabled. Bauby was fairly self absorbed before he had his stroke and he never really treated his children?s mother very well. Schabel does not judge Bauby, but he also doesn?t overlook these aspects of his life the way something like A Beautiful Mind does. Instead the film looks at Bauby as a complex human being with both good and bad qualities.
The film?s ultimate message is that it is best to keep hold of your humanity even in the worst of situations. Jean-Dominique Bauby managed to accomplish more with one eye than many able bodied people were able to, but again, this is no mere message movie; it?s a complex character study of a man in an extreme situation, as well as a fascinating look at his day to day life. The audience is treated with anecdotes about the everyday struggles Bauby faces, like not being able to change the channel on his television or having to make telephone conversations through an interpreter. Occasionally his plight reminded me of an even poorer soul in Dalton Trumbo?s anti-war classic Johnny Got His Gun who didn?t even have on eye or the ability to hear as Bauby did.
This is a beautiful and inspiring film that dodges all the traps that beautiful and inspiring movies all too often fall into. A triumph of both style and substance; this is a fascinating, non-formulaic work of art from a brilliant filmmaker who will go to any length to tell a story as best as he can.
**** out of four

When a movie has a title as unwieldy as this one, you have to wonder why the filmmakers insisted on such un-commercial name. Often such a title is stuck to as a joke, other times it?s just an indulgence, and other time it?s stuck to simply because it?s absolutely perfect for the movie at large. Firstly, the title perfectly mimics the kind of faux-ellegance that was rapart in late 19th century dime-novels, the kind of books that created the legend of gunfighters like Jesse James, exactly the kind of mythos this film completely de-glamorizes. Secondly it firmly establishes Robert Ford as the main character rather than Jesse James, and makes the assassination the center of the film. Most importantly, it reminds the viewer of what Robert Ford?s legacy is, that of a coward.

Here?s the catch, Robert Ford isn?t any more of a coward than Jesse James is, he just didn?t get the same kind of press and didn?t build himself into a celebrity. Many compared the film to last year?s No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood because of its western setting, but thematically it has more in common with another 2007 film, Zodiac. Both films deal with criminals who the media managed to turn into celebrities, in this case through no action of the criminal himself. The masses were absolutely enthralled by Jesse James even though he was an unrepentant murderer who did absolutely nothing productive for society.

Among those obsessed with Jesse James is Robert Ford. Ford reminded me in many ways of the character of Rupert Pupkin from Martin Scorsese?s The King of Comedy. He?s an obsessive fan who not only wants to be near his celebrity idle, he wants to be him. And like Pumpkin, his object of desire eventually becomes an enemy in his eyes. Once the assassination in the title occurs, the film begins to resemble another Martin Scorsese film: Taxi Driver. Robert Ford?s fate mirrors Travis Bickle?s but like a mirror image it is reversed. Had Bickle been successful in his attempt to kill the senatorial candidate he would have been vilified by the public, but because he killed a sleazeball pimp he was made a hero. If Robert Ford had killed a pimp he probably would have been a hero, instead he killed the legendary Jesse James, and well? the movie isn?t called ?The Assassination of Jesse James by the Hero Robert Ford.?

Of course, the public wouldn?t have hated Ford if they had known the same Jesse James Ford did. The Jesse James Ford knew did not live up to the hype. Of course writer/director Andrew Dominik could have made the whole thing a lot clearer and simpler if he had turned Jesse James into a mustache twirling villain, but he doesn?t go that far. This Jesse James is simply an average person, except that he has an illegal job. Ford went to meet him expecting to find a great man because he?s only ?known? him through all the nonsense dime novels everyone else had been reading, but there?s nothing great about the real Jesse James.

This film isn?t just great because of its historical analysis of contemporary celebrity worship. This is also an amazing visual experience. The visuals here are absolutely stunning; I never had the slightest clue that the director of Chopper would have such a cinematic eye. This is one of the few films that manages to get Malick-esque visual language right. Roger Deacon?s cinematography is stunningly beautiful. The film was shot on location in western Canada, like most post-Peckenpaw westerns the landscape is not a dusty desert, but a green barren prairie. The film is violent, but it isn?t an action movie. Aside from the titular assassination, there are a few beatings, but more importantly there?s a nice brutal little shootout about a third of the way through the film that correctly portrays just how horribly inaccurate 19th century revolvers really were.

When it was released in the September of 2007 the film received a few great reviews, but it was mostly dismissed as a whole. Most negative reviews focused on the films length, but I think that?s hogwash, another example of the cinematic ADD that?s been rearing its head all too often these days. I found it very refreshing to finally see a movie that takes its time to tell a story instead of rushing every scene in order to appease a mass audience in need of instant satisfaction. This is a great western in the vein of Unforgiven, Maccabe and Mrs. Miller, and Pat Garret & Billy the Kid.

It?s amazing how frequently duels emerge between similar sounding films that get released over the course of a single year. Last year the big duel was between a pair of magician related films The Prestige and The Illusionist; most will agree that the critical and financial winner of that duel was The Prestige. Many may remember the asteroid duel of 1998 between Armageddon and Deep Impact, a duel that shows how many of these match ups are superficial; both films involved asteroids but ultimately were pretty different. This year the big coincidence matchup is between a pair of unwanted pregnancy comedies, the Judd Apatow comedy Knocked Up, from earlier this year and the new independent darling from Jason Reitman: Juno.
The film?s title character, Juno (Ellen Page), is a precocious sixteen year old girl who walks to the beat of her own drum. Juno and her platonic male friend, Paulie Bleeker (Michael Cera), found themselves having sex once mostly out of boredom. This act of experimentation has resulted in Juno finding herself pregnant. Juno considers but ultimately rejects plans to get an abortion and tells her parents (played by J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney) about her condition. Her parents are not happy about the situation but manage to keep a snce of humor about it. Looking at al her options Juno begins to strongly consider giving her baby up for adoption and finds a pair of yuppies (played by Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner) willing to take the child.
The success of Juno is mostly rooted in the likability of the characters, specifically Juno herself as played by Ellen Page. Juno is a unique character who?s easy-going attitude is the source of most of the film?s humor. Juno has a style all her own, she has above average taste in music and slasher films and also speaks with a vocabulary of invented slang which is always a pleasure to hear. She is a larger than life character, almost an Annie Hall for the 21st century, and like the Annie Hall character I suspect Juno?s style will be imitated over the next few years. Most of Juno?s charm derives from Ellen Page?s excellent performance that fills the character with humanity. The twenty year old actress inhabits the characteristics of a sixteen year old in a transformation reminiscent of Alison Lohman?s underappreciated turn in the 2003 Ridley Scott film Matchstick Men. More importantly, Page is able to deliver some highly stylized dialogue in a very organic and believable way.
The rest of this ensemble cast is also completely solid. Michael Cera has been having a great year with breakthrough performances in Superbad and this film. His character is not the film?s strongest, but Cera is almost perfect for the role. Another ?Arrested Development? alumni featured here is Jason Bateman playing Mark Loring, the potential adoptive father of Juno?s baby. The character is a musician who composes advertising jingles but claims to have once opened for The Melvins. He gets into arguments with Juno over whether 1993 or 1977 was a better year for rock and roll (his arguments in favor of 1993 is of course correct, but she makes a good case for 1977). Jennifer Garner?s performance as Loring?s wife is probably the strongest of the film?s supporting characters. Garner adds a certain sadness to the role and does a lot with limited screen time. Also worth mentioning are J.K. Simmons and Allison Janney as Juno?s parents. Simmons, who is probably best known for his turn as a white supremacist prisoner named Vernon Schillinger in the HBO original series ?Oz,? manages to make his role both gruff and caring at the same time. Allison Janney, playing Juno?s mother, should be given special credit for managing to make one scene involving and ultrasound work when it would have failed miserably in any other hands.
Diablo Cody, a first time screenwriter, has a real knack for writing funny dialogue that is quirky but not absurd. The film?s dialogue is one of its best assets and it would have been its biggest problem were it not so well written. One should not forget that this is a comedy and one that doesn?t disappoint. There are a lot of very funny moments here and they are all well deserved and naturalistic. The film is populated with likable, and multi facetted characters to grow and develop over the course of the film. By the films end none of the viewers initial impressions of any of the characters prove to hold up over the film?s duration. I?m going to avoid giving away the way these characters change over the course of the film, but I will simply say that this screenplay is full of surprises.
Superficially, Juno would seem to fit very well into the mold of independent comedies like Rushmore, Garden State, and Little Miss Sunshine. If the movie has any problem it is that it is occasionally a bit to conscious of its place in this movement. This is particularly notable in the film?s first fifteen minutes where the dialogue is a bit to sharp, the soundtrack is a bit too ironically hip, and the opening credit sequence is a bit too quirky for its own good. However, the film quickly abandons these indie conventions and like the Juno character, begins to forge its own identity. If this is anyone?s fault its Jason Reitman?s; this director?s last film, Thank You for Smoking, was also a little bit to conscious of its place as satire. There?s still room for improvement for is Jason Rietman?s skills as a director, but he?s delivered a hell of a sophomore effort. He?s definitely on my directors to watch list.
This small annoyance is hardly enough to have tainted my experience with Juno. This is a charming, lovable film, which is loaded with sheer likability. As for the inevitable comparisons with Knocked Up: I think it?s a non story. Christopher Orr of The New Republic recently called it ?Knocked Up for adults? I?d object to this simplistic characterization, firstly because this underestimates the tastes of teenagers, secondly because Knocked Up deserves more than to be called ?Juno for juviniles,? thirdly because the entire comparison is pointless. These films are every bit as different as Deep Impact and Armageddon were, and that shouldn?t be an insult to either party.
This Oscar season is going to be filled with dark, challenging films, and there?s nothing wrong at all with that. But cinemagoers deserve this highly enjoyable oasis in dark this holiday season.

We?ve all seen people like him, a man standing with an open guitar case in front of him as he plays his heart out while uninterested pedestrians walk by on their way to more important things. There?s no way the few coins donated by generous the occasional passersby can support anyone; one wonders what drives these street musicians to their spots day in and day out. Once, the new film from the unknown Irish director John Carney has answered that question, I may never see one of these street corner bards the same way again.
The film?s unnamed male protagonist (Glen Hansard) sings and plays guitar on the streets of Dublin whenever he isn?t working at his father?s vacuum repair shop. While performing one of his own songs one night he meets an unnamed Czech immigrant (Markéta Irglová). The Girl is also a struggling musician who must go to a music shop in order to play a piano. Most of the guy?s songs were inspired by a girlfriend who had run off to London, leaving him heartbroken. The girl, who?s younger than the guy, has a baby and lives with her mother, she has a husband back in the Czech republic with whom she has separated and may never return to. The guy and girl form a platonic bond that never quite turns into a romance. The two eventually start collaborating musically, with good results. The guy finally decides to move to London in search of a record deal and possibly to reunite with his estranged girlfriend. Before he goes however he invites the girl to work with him on some studio demos over the weekend before his departure.
Once has been described as a musical, but I strongly hesitate to use that genre as a descriptor. This is not a movie where people burst into song spontaneously for no reason other than to shoehorn in a ?number?. This is also not a big budget spectacle, it was made for $150,000 on the streets of Dublin and is shot naturalistically without trying to revel in its low-budget the way a pretentious director like Lars Von Trier would. The songs in the film are usually played in their entirety, but are started for realistic reasons by characters who are musicians. The film is far more intimate and down to earth than a large budget musical like Chicago.
The music in the movie is acoustic pop in the vein of Tracy Chapman, the kind of thing that would be played by a ?singer-songwriter? (a phrase I?m not a fan of). This is not the kind of music I normally enjoy. I prefer heavier music, in fact as I write this I?m listening to a Nine Inch Nails CD. With that said I thoroughly enjoyed the music in Once. The music is well written and aesthetically enjoyable on its own, but I don?t think I?d like it as much outside the context of the film. The film is what really made me love this music, knowing what?s going on in the performer?s lives while seeing the passion in their performances made the music really gel perfectly. Some songs and performances do work better than others, ?Falling Slowly? and ?When Your Minds Made Up? both stand out significantly more than anything else in the movie, but I wouldn?t call any of the songs bad, in fact I wouldn?t be surprised if we are hearing some of the music from this movie on Oscar night.
Both of the leads are played by professional musicians rather than professional actors. Glen Hansard was the lead singer for the Irish rock band The Frames in which director John Carney once played bass. Markéta Irglová is a solo musician who had worked with Hansard earlier. The lack of acting experience doesn?t really seem to be a problem here. Both are convincing in their parts. Neither are really forced to play overly challenging scenes, they certainly aren?t being very showy, but they do their jobs. Hansard does generally seem to be working harder than Irglová, but any problems are more than made up for by what the two bring to their musical performances. In my review of Black Snake Moan I felt that Samuel L. Jackson couldn?t really sing that well, but the way he acted made it seem like he could. The actors here really can sing and it shows, both movies have good music, but these performers didn?t have to try as hard.
The story here is simple but elegant. There?s nothing groundbreaking about this script, but the execution is so good it doesn?t matter. The viewer truly begins to know the guy and girl by the end of the film and empathize with their feelings. The film does all this without any of the emotional manipulation and falseness of a Hollywood romance. The film is slightly reminiscent of Richard Linklater?s excellent Before Sunrise. The viewer watches as these two people are together for a while before the real world pulls them apart. The film also has a nice sub-plot between the guy and his blue collar father (Bill Hodnett) who initially seems fairly indifferent about his son?s musical endeavors. The film accomplishes everything it sets out to do and delivers a great emotional pay off at the end while keeping to its realistic, down to earth roots. Once does all of this in a brief eighty-five minutes and leaves the viewer wanting more.
Once made its debut at Sundance where it won the World Cinema Audience Award for a dramatic film. The film has become a critical darling since then and has earned nearly unanimously positive reviews while being a box office hit at art house theaters. In many ways the film is this year?s Half Nelson: an indie that comes like a breath of fresh air in a market littered with over the top Hollywood action movies. I was worried that the critical response this movie had gotten was simply the result of such a poor summer environment but it wasn?t. This is a truly engaging movie that deserves the praise its been getting. The film is a great intimate story set in the real world that made me appreciate music I?m usually not into. This movie is far more than just the cure for the summer movie blues.

The Bourne series has been a genuine surprise, something that is rare for a summer action movie. The Bourne Identity surprised everyone with its success both critically and commercially. Prior to its release most assumed it would be overshadowed by another spy thriller being released two weeks earlier, The Sum of All Fears. Tom Clancy was a better known spy fiction writer and Ben Affleck had more blockbusters to his name, but Matt Daemon?s Robert Ludlum adaptation held its own. The Bourne Identity only made a few million more than Sum but it is far better remembered today.
When it came time for a sequel, people were skeptical again. The Bourne Supremacy had a lot to live up to and surprisingly it delivered. New director Paul Greengrass came in and gave the sequel a gritty look that was jarring at first but grew on the viewer with time. The Jason Bourne character grew and changed, he stopped being surprised at how efficient he was and started to really feel like a super spy. The Bourne Supremacy solidified the series as one of the most important action series of the new millennium. Before 2004, the James Bond series had been the gold standard by which all spy movies were judged, but with Casino Royale it became clear that the master had become the apprentice; James bond was trying to catch up with Jason Bourne.
The third film seemed doomed to failure a few months ago, there had been a long string of disappointing ?threequels? like Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End and The Bourne Ultimatum it seemed would be the last victim of this string of failures. However Bourne has come forward and surprised his naysayers once again, The Bourne Ultimatum is the best film of the series, and the best action movie of the summer.
Six months have passed since Bourne was chased down in Moscow; Bourne has traveled to Italy to inform Marie?s (the heroine played by Franka Potente from the original Bourne Identity) brother of his sister?s death. The brother (who will be remembered from the pen-ultimate action scene from the original film) tells Bourne that he knew it would end like this, Bourne reluctantly says he didn?t. As he is leaving Bourne learns that Simon Ross (Paddy Considine), a reporter for The Guardian, has written an article about Bourne and the Treadstone project. Bourne decides to follow this new lead hoping it could lead him to more answers about his past. Unfortunately Bourne isn?t the only one who read that article, Noah Vosen (David Strathairn) leader of Blackbriar (essentially Treadstone 2.0) is also aware of the article and is monitoring Ross to find out his source.
What is it that sets the Bourne movies apart from the many other similar spy movies out there? Part of it is that they are meant to please adults instead of teenagers. Even though they feature the young actor Matt Daemon, they aren?t dumbed down in any way. They never tried to appeal to MTV sensibilities and never worried about being hip, a mistake made by lesser action films. While the films weren?t made for teenagers, they could still be enjoyed by that powerful yet largely underestimated demographic. The films managed to feel authentic even though it probably bears little resemblance to real world spycraft. They had political thriller elements without having to discuss politics.
The action scenes in the trilogy were top notch, yet the filmmakers knew just when to hold back to prevent them from feeling cartoonish. The action scenes never feel gratuitous, every one of them work to advance the stories. Bourne is not a physically imposing figure, he gets by in extreme situations with his excellent intelligence and skill are what bring him through the action scenes rather than brute force. The car chases have all been spectacular and exiting without taking the viewer out of the film?s reality. The fight scenes have all been fast and brutal, the films stayed PG-13, but without feeling unnaturally censored. But where the movies are at there best have been the cat and mouse chases. The Bourne Ultimatum has the best cat and mouse chase in the entire series, the best fight in the entire series, and the best car chase in the entire series, quite an accomplishment considering how far ahead of everyone else the series has already been.
The movies have consistently had excellent supporting ensemble casts; great character actors like Chris Cooper, Brian Cox, and Joan Allen have populated the world of the series throughout and added significantly to the movies. The filmmakers have also been willing to really focus on these characters who would be two dimensional villains in lesser action movies. Joan Allen is back as Pamela Landy and better than ever. Julia Stiles has been an interesting presence throughout the series and her part in The Bourne Ultimatum is larger than it has been before. Stiles? character of Nicky Parsons is probably the most dynamic character of the series, in the first film she was an ally to the antagonist Treadstone group, in the second she became a more sympathetic antagonist like Pamala Landy. In The Bourne Ultimatum her shift goes full circle, she takes the Franka Potente role as Bourne?s female ally. New to the cast is David Strathairn; fresh off his Oscar nominated role in Good Night, and Good Luck, Strathairn manages to enter into this and live up to the high standards set by his predecessors.
Director Paul Greengrass entered the series in the second installment and was a controversial choice. The original director, Doug Liman, used a very traditional visual style, it used simple camera movements. Greengrass however uses a very dynamic, documentary filming style involving a shaky camera. The style shift was jarring at first, I myself wasn?t sure what to think of it at first, but its strengths began to grow on me with future viewings. Greengrass, who directed last years best film United 93, knows how to manage a handheld camera better than anyone else. Greengrass uses the style consistently throughout the film rather than switching styles whenever he thinks they?ll be convenient. Greengrasses style is still present in The Bourne Ultimatum and it has matured even further, the viewer no longer even notices the camera shaking even when it is.
It was easy to take the first two Bourne movies for granted they never hit you over the head with their greatness; they were low key movies that never missed a beat but never really did any showing off. I suppose you don?t really know what you?ve got until it?s gone, only with the last film do I see just how much of an accomplishment has been achieved by this series. It?s an almost perfect franchise, I can?t think of a thing I?d change. The Bourne Ultimatum is more of the same except better this time, it?s an evolution rather than a revolution, but when you?re working with a series that has been consistently ahead of everyone else that?s a reasonable thing to deliver. If you liked the last two Bourne films, you?ll love this. If you missed the last two Bourne movies, where have you been for the last five years? And if you didn?t like the first two Bourne movies? well you?d be the first.

If your husband or wife was sick and the only cure cost more than you could afford, would you steal the cure to save her? Would you go as far as to kill the shop owner? These are the kinds of dilemmas that can haunt minds. That particular dilemma was invented by psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg to test moral development. Danny Boyle?s new film Sunshine is a film that Kohlberg would have loved. In the film the dilemmas are more extreme and the wrong choices could lead to the end of all humanity.
The film takes place in 2057, that?s three years after Steven Spielberg?s Minority Report was supposed to take place. For some reason every science fiction film since 2001: A Space Odyssey has tried to set themselves way too soon to be believed, but that?s a superficial complaint. In this unfavorable future the sun is dying for some unspecified reason. The last hope for humanity was to send a space ship called The Icarus to deliver a nulear bomb the size of a mountain right into the sun?s corona, unfortunately The Icarus failed to deliver its payload and disappeared. Earth dedicated its final remaining resources into another ship, The Icarus II, manned by an elite group of astronauts; this is where the film begins without wasting more than four or five lines to explain all of this. Delivering natural exposition and explaining all this technology in a graceful way is one of the film?s great strengths.
The international crew is made up of both American and Chinese members, it is left to the viewer to guess why these are the two nations collaborating to save humanity. Communications Officer and First Mate Harvey (Troy Garity) discovers a distress beacon from the first Icarus ship which Navigation Officer Trey (Benedict Wong) calculates had almost reached its destination before stopping for unknown reasons. Before anyone even brings up the idea of a rescue mission, such a plan is immediately shot down by the ship?s engineer Mace (Chris Evans) who reminds them that nothing can be more important than their mission to save humanity. The ship?s psychiatrist, Searle (Cliff Curtis), proposes a counter argument; Searle suggests that because of the unknown variables in the mission?s ultimate goal, it would be worth picking up the Icarus I?s payload as a backup in case their own failed, essentially giving humanity two last hopes instead of one. The ship?s Captain, Kaneda (Hiroyuki Sanada), decides to place the decision in the hands of the most qualified member to decide; the onboard physicist Robert Capa (Cillian Murphy), who personally designed the bomb the ship is carrying.
The decision Capa makes, aside from being an ethical quagmire when it comes to the Icarus I?s crew, will affect all of humanity but more importantly it will affect all of Sunshine. Boyle?s film is loaded with these kinds of tough decisions under extraordinary circumstances, and all the decision?s the characters make dramatically affect the outcome of the mission. Theses decision?s however do not exist in a vacuum, surprises do occur and everyday mistakes will also affect the mission every bit as much as these foreseeable dilemmas, yet these seemingly random occurrences have a way of blooming into their own complicated situations and lead inevitably to more complicated decisions.
All this talk of Kohlberg dilemmas and tough decisions shouldn?t lead one to believe this is an entirely intellectual work of science fiction, in fact for the most part the movie is an outright thriller, albeit one that thrills the viewer with images and ideas more so than action. The film avoids wearing high minded philosophy, spirituality and metaphysics on its sleeve. These elements made 2001: A Space Odyssey sublime but also made works like Solaris (both the 1972 and 2002 version) boring as hell, while falling completely flat in fiascos like Mission to Mars. However there are very interesting things said in the movie about technology, death, and even religion, it?s just that these elements are subtle and never brought to the surface. These messages are there for those who want to find them but never take over the movie. The thriller aspects also tend to hold back, it never becomes as thrilling as something like Alien, but that also keeps it from the silliness featured in the likes of Event Horizon or Supernova (a space movie seen by myself and hopefully no one else). For the most part Sunshine manages to walk the line between the thriller-oriented entries in this genre and the intellectual entries.
This two-sidedness would be problematic if both sides didn?t work as well as they do. As a thriller the film works, there are suspense scenes that will have you clenching your seat and spooky, atmospheric scenes that work as well as most scenes of these type have, particularly effective is a pseudo-subliminal effect involving flashlights. These thrills are supported by a well written and intelligent script by Alex Garland, author of the novel The Beach which many felt was butchered by Boyle?s film adaptation of the same name. Notice that, while the dilemma described above works great as an intellectual challenge, the scene also introduces the audience to the characters that populate the ship and introduces their clashing personalities.
One argument that could be levied against Sunshine is that the characters that populate it feel more like types than fully developed characters. This is true to a degree, the characters are all static for the most part and none of them would support a movie on their own. However this line of criticism would lead the viewer to miss the mountain for the trees. This is in fact a classic ensemble film, individual characters are not the important. What is important is the way they interact, the many, many conflicts that form between all of them. This type of ensemble writing wouldn?t work without an excellent ensemble cast to make these personality types come to life in unique ways, luckily Sunshine?s cast doesn?t let the screenplay down. All of the actors deliver solid, mostly un-flashy performances that work for the movie, none of them are delivering performances for the ages but none of them take the viewer out of the movie. Some of the characters and cast members not named above include the ship?s pilot Cassie (Rose Byrne) and the ship?s botanist (Michelle Yeoh).
The technology in the film will seem rather familiar to anyone familiar with movies like this. The ship looks a lot like the ships in movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Solaris and the ultimate goal of reigniting the sun is ultimately nothing more than a macguffin, albeit an excellent one that provides most of the film?s best visuals. For the most part the film manages to be familiar without being derivative. There?s a shot that tends to be featured in almost every post-2001:ASO space movie where a ship is introduced at one end before fully entering frame revealing the ship?s actual massive size. The most famous example of this is probably the opening shot of the original Star Wars where a star destroyer flies forward onto frame revealing itself to be a massive triangular vessel. The establishing shot of Icarus II continues this tradition while subverting it; in this opening shot (viewable at the beginning of the film?s excellent teaser trailer) the Icarus appears massive before the camera pans around it to reveal a tiny ship that happens to be attached to a massive nuclear bomb. This shot exemplifies how the film manages to surprise veterans of the genre while showing them things they?ve seen before.
Sunshine is a film that has polarized critics, and for reasons I can understand. There is a dramatic change in tone in the last fourth of the movie that many will interpret as a sellout. This switch is the result of a plot twist I will not reveal, needless to say this hits the viewer like a bag of rocks and leads to a more kinetic and action oriented direction in the finale. During this portion the film gets a little to close to Event Horizon/Supernova territory for comfort. This ending may be a disappointment to those hoping for a character driven end or a metaphysical situation of a 2001 nature. However, as seemingly different as this ending is, it completely succeeds at what it?s trying to be, a tense and exiting finale that does lead the movie to a logical ending.
Sunshine is not for everybody; in fact it?s not for many. The film will mostly appeal to established fans of science fiction, those who have never heard of Close Encounters of the Third Kind might want to see something lighter. Still the movie is not inaccessible, anyone who is looking for an intelligent thriller may find something to enjoy. It?s a movie viewers will likely leave not sure what to think; their true opinion will likely be formed after careful consideration of the film. What?s undeniable is that the movie shoots for the moon, some will think it hits its target head on, some will think it misses but will likely find it floating among the stars. After careful consideration I?m willing to join the former camp with only a few reservations.

Serial killers are some of the most fascinating figures in all of cinema. Norman Bates, Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, Hannibal Lecture, even John Doe (the nemesis featured in David Fincher?s Se7en) have all, for better or worse, been among the most popular movie characters. But this fascination the public has with serial killers is not limited to the cinema screen. Real life killers like Jack the Ripper, Charles Manson, The Son of Sam, and The D.C. Sniper among countless others have all seeped into the public mindset, exiting and frightening the public at the same time.
Perhaps no unsolved criminal endeavor has troubled the masses more then that of the Zodiac killer. This legacy is mostly the result of self promotion on the killer?s part. Zodiac has only been positively linked to five murders. The Zodiac Killer used the press to create a creepy aura around his identity and has effectively made himself into a west coast boogieman for the last four decades. Charles Cullen killed eight times as many people, yet Zodiac has had five times as many movies made about him.
The latest of these cinematic representations of the infamous killer is David Fincher?s Zodiac, which tells the story of Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) a cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle who became obsessed with catching the serial killer and eventually wrote the book upon which Zodiac is based. The film also depicts David Toschi (Mark Ruffalo) the detective investigating the killings, and Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr.) a reporter covering the murders.
David Fincher is probably the greatest director to emerge from the MTV rotation into feature films. How Fincher managed to beat the odds and become something greater then his legion of peers who seem unable to evolve past the over-edited, bombastic, and ultimately empty style that most music video directors embrace may remain a mystery, Zodiac in fact represents Fincher?s furthest departure from that sensibility thus far.
Don?t let the advertising fool you, Zodiac is no thriller. Early on there are scenes that will have you on the edge of your seat, but after the first forty minutes the film slows down and becomes a police procedural. Those going in expecting Se7en may be disappointed when they get All the President?s Men. Still, taken for what it is, Zodiac is a fairly impressive piece of work. It is probably best to go into the film with as little knowledge of the real Zodiac killer as possible, the film tells you everything you?ll need to know about the case and then some. By the end you feel like an expert about the case.
The film unfortunately is handicapped by its devotion to accuracy, like the real case, the film starts in a very frightening way and begins to get more down to earth as it goes on. The murder scenes are excellent and will likely be remembered as some of the best individual scenes of the year. The scenes without the killer are less consistent. The movie is at its weakest when it explores the personal lives of the investigators, the scenes with Chloë Sevigny as the long suffering wife of Graysmith are particularly problematic. For the most part however the actual investigation is very interesting.
Fincher?s entire crew is doing amazing work; the entire production is top notch. The script is somber without being pretentious; there are some genuinely funny moments to lighten the mood. Fincher does nothing to make me worried about his career, but I must say I wasn?t floored by the movie the way I have been by most of Fincher?s other works. It is mainly hurt by the fact that it is trying to be a cold methodical work of non-fiction, rather then a great page turning work of fiction. It?s too bad Fincher decided to go in such a strict factual direction, it means the film?s most interesting character has very little screen time. It also means that like the real case, the audience will never know if Graysmith was right. Still Fincher should be applauded for doing what few before him have done; he made a very good film about this most over hyped of killers.

The first scene in Eastern Promises involves someone getting his throat cut with very bloody results. The scene may be shocking to many, but it will come as no surprise to anyone who?s particularly familiar with the works of David Cronenberg, a director famous for bringing extremely graphic violence to the screen in new and interesting ways.

The film centers on Anna Khitrova (Naomi Watts) a second generation Russian immigrant in London working as a mid-wife at the local hospital. A pregnant girl shows up at the hospital going through troubled labor, she ends up dying in childbirth. Khitrova decides to track down the girl?s family in order to find a place for the newborn baby. This search leads her into the dark world of imported prostitution and sex slavery run by the Russian mafia. Among these Russian gangsters is Nikolai Luzhin (Viggo Mortenson) who first appears to be the driver of a crime boss named Semyon (Armin Mueller-Stahl) and his violent son Kirill (Vincent Cassel). Finding this dead girl?s family soon becomes complicated and these gangsters are dangerous people to deal with.

Eastern Promises was written by Steven Knight, whose most notable prior credit was the film Dirty Pretty Things. This film is somewhat similar in that both deal with immigrant minorities in London?s underground. I found Dirty Pretty Things was a work with some interesting ideas, but also that it was ultimately forgettable. I feel this script would also have been interesting but forgettable were it not for some very interesting acting and the intervention of David Cronenberg.

Cronenberg has become so famous for his disturbing body horror and gore that many people forget about one of his biggest strength, his ability to direct actors. Cronenberg was behing Christopher Walken?s brilliant performance in The Dead Zone, Jeff Goldblum?s great turn in The Fly, and Jeremy Iron?s double role in Dead Ringers that was famously snubbed by the academy. In his last movie, A History of Violence Cronenberg got an amazing performance out of Viggo Mortenson as he came off his star turning role as Aragorn in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Morenson is working with Cronenberg again here as the massively tattooed gangster Nikolai, and he is very strong again. His acting is subtle here, but noticeably good; his character isn?t as easy to show off with as it was on A History of Violence but I think he is just as good. Though Mortenson clearly steals the show, the acting is great from the rest of the cast as well. Naomi Watts is one of the best actresses of her generation and her work here is up to her usual high standards. Vincent Cassel is also great as the violent and disturbed young gangster Kirill, as is Armin Mueller-Stahl as his father. Jerzy Skolimowski also make a memorable appearance as Anna?s father who claims to be former KGB? but probably wasn?t.

Eastern Promises, like many Cronenberg?s last film is hard to classify. It doesn?t really fit as a thriller of horror film, as tension doesn?t really seem to be the goal here. It?s way to violent to be what many would see as a conventional drama, and it also doesn?t really feel like a crime film as the Russian Mafia feels more like a backdrop then the real point. The fact that it doesn?t easily fit in any box allows it to avoid many genre conventions and remain highly unpredictable.

Cronenberg is no longer within a horror or science fiction setting, but ?the new flesh? still lives, albeit in a more realistic setting. There is a scene involving a frozen body that many of Cronenberg?s fans like me will lap up but ?normal? find fairly disgusting. There?s also a scene where Viggo Mortenson gets into a violent bloody knife fight? naked. It?s a scene that, again, will be very interesting to Cronenberg fans but will make almost anyone else very uncomfortable.

To be perfectly honest, I don?t know how much there would be to enjoy here if it weren?t for Cronenberg, and the solid cast. I can?t say I found the story overly fascinating. What I did find interesting was Cronenberg?s auteur stamp, although it?s more of an evolution of the style that was established in the superior History of Violence than it is a revolution. This is certainly worth seeing for people that dig Cronenberg?s style, and there?s certainly nothing wrong with the rest of it, but Cronenberg?s style all that really makes it special.

The new George Clooney vehicle is given the fairly ambiguous title Michael Clayton. This isn?t the best title to market a movie with; very few movies tend to simply be named after fictional characters. This title may be a detriment to the film?s overall box office, but it is worth it. The title helps the movie a lot, it gives away none of the film?s moderately complicated plot and it reminds the viewer what they should be paying attention to amidst this controlled chaos, the title character.
The film follows (of course) Michael Clayton (George Clooney), who on paper is a lawyer, but his employers call him a ?fixer.? Clayton?s job in the law firm is crisis management, he?s like The Wolf from Pulp Fiction, when there is a touchy situation he is sent to clean them up and get things under control. The movie provides this character with quite a mess to deal with. The firm?s top lawyer, who is defending the U/North chemical company in a multi-billion dollar class action lawsuit, has an apparent breakdown during a hearing. This lawyer, Arthur Edens (Tom Wilkinson), had a history of mental illness and had just gone off his medication, but it seems he may be planning more than a fit. The firm?s senior partner Marty Bach (Sydney Pollack) asks Clayton to follow Edens and get him under control. Meanwhile Karen Crowder (Tilda Swinton), the in house attorney for U/North, begins an investigation of her own into Edens.
The film does not fit into genre boxes perfectly, it is a legal thriller but that genre shouldn?t be confused with that of the court-room genre, as there are no courtroom scenes to be found here. The film actually fits in better with that of paranoid 70s thrillers like Three Days of Condor. Additionally, this is a thriller more the way All the Presidents Men or The Insider, don?t expect edge of your seat suspense. It is surprising that the film was not based on a novel, as it features a level of complexity and detail often found in popular paperbacks today. The film?s script is actually an original work by Tony Gilroy who has been writing high profile films for over a decade. Gilroy also makes an impressive directorial debut here.
To call this plot labyrinthine is definitely an exaggeration. Audiences will not be able to coast through the films plot, but this isn?t nearly as complicated as a lot of other movies that are far more worthy of that adjective. The film is far less complicated than 2005?s George Clooney thriller Syriana, although it does require more focus than the average cookie cutter drama. As long as the viewer pays attention they should fine here. Aside from the story, this is a very good script. The dialogue really crackles here, it sounds really great without feeling like it?s trying too hard or feeling out of place.
As I established earlier, it is important not to forget about the title character amidst all the plot twists, the character based payoff goes hand in hand with the plot?s payoff. When you put the main character?s name in a film?s title it puts an extra burden on the actor playing him. Michael Clayton is a challenging role to play, it?s nothing like the roles Clooney has become famous for. Clooney has to bring a lot to the character that isn?t necessarily on the surface. Clayton is a man of mystery and Clooney has less to do more with less, and look pretty cool while he does it. Clooney was well cast here and manages to pull of this difficult role quite well.
As good a Clooney is, he is somewhat upstaged by the supporting cast. Tilda Swinton has a role with many of the same challenges as Clooney?s. Karen Crowder is a villainous antagonistic role, but not a clichéd one. She is a villain that never twirls a moustache or shows any outward evil at all, she must act ruthlessly without being ruthless. These elements were not lost on Swinton who performs the role perfectly. Sydney Pollack is also an interesting presence; he is after all the director who brought us the aforementioned Three Days of Condor. Pollock manages to do what he usually does as an actor, be himself. He works great as a bureaucrat and is a consistently engaging screen presence. It is Tom Wilkinson who truly steals the show; he gives an Oscar worthy supporting performance. Unlike Clooney, Wilkonson has a character that allows him to show off his range. As Arthur Edens, Wilkinson is allowed to chew scenery in all the right ways.
This is a very good movie, but it isn?t great. When all is said and done the story isn?t as special as it seems. Deep down this is a fairly conventional thriller looking at the type of situations we?ve seen done a lot before, albeit rarely as well. The movie is resolved by the same Hail Mary pass I?ve seen end a million of these movies, but I?ll be damned if I?ve seen such a scene written or acted much better. The script relies a bit too much on coincidence at a crucial moment, but that?s really not too big of a problem.
At the end of the day this is a very strong movie. This is definitely worth seeing; it has talented actors delivering great dialogue in an enjoyable story with strong direction. There are a number of great scenes to enjoy, it?s fun to watch. Still it is just shy of greatness; it?s just missing a certain ambition. Perhaps it?s better to succeed at being like John Grisham than to fail at being Dostoevsky, but when you compromise like that you end up short of greatness. I?d hesitate to ever put this on a year end list, but it?s probably a lock for honorable mention, and certainly worth seeing.

Bob Dylan is one really weird guy. This is a man who went from being a kid from Hibbing, Minnesota to being a folk artist, to being the voice of a generation, to being a rock and roll legend, to being a recluse, to being a born again Christian, only to emerge in the 90s as a revered musical legend. That?s a lot of changes for one person to go through; that?s why he?s such a hard person to understand and, more importantly, such a hard person to document. Martin Scorsese?s excellent PBS documentary No Direction Home needed 208 minutes in order to explain just two of these transitions. In making a dramatic biopic about Bob Dylan, many filmmakers would try to downplay all of these contradictions and transitions. The fearless and experimental filmmaker Todd Haynes however has decided to do just the opposite with I?m Not There, an unconventional but fascinating project that attempts to dissect the Dylan person by casting six different actors as the central figure.

I should start by establishing my level of experience with Bob Dylan. Like many people from generations to emerge after the height of Bob Dylan?s fame, I first embarked on a Dylan Odyssey in high school simply to see what all the fuss was about. Like most I started with his seminal album ?Highway 61 Revisited? which at the time didn?t do much for me aside from ?Like a Rolling Stone? which is a pretty hard track to dislike. However the question of ?what?s all the fuss about?? continued to nag me, and I began to explore his folk roots. I could respect some of the political messages in this folk music but the acoustic instrumentation kind of bored me; I was a hardcore rock fan and the sound of a single guitar didn?t do much to excite me. However there was a certain something that kept making me want to come to Dylan.

The more that I?ve learned about Dylan the more I?ve come to respect him, but respecting him isn?t the same thing as liking him. I definitely love a good handful of Dylan?s greatest hits; ?Like a Rolling Stone,? ?All Along the Watchtower,? ?Knockin? on Heaven?s Door,? and ?Master of War? are among a select cannon of Dylan track that I definitely love. However I definitely stop far short of the praise if not worship that many people place on the guy. I like the guy and respect his work, but many people go way further with their extreme praise than I?m willing too.

I mention all this because I?m Not There is definitely a film for Dylan?s existing fans. Unless you?re already familiar to some degree with Dylan and his career, this movie will be nearly incoherent. That?s not to say you need to be an expert, but you will need to know the basic outline of his life story. The No Direction Home documentary was just enough of a prerequisite for me to mostly understand the film, and you may also want to read through Dylan?s Wikipedia page before you go.

The film uses an outlandishly unique style that greatly differentiates it from conventional music biopics like Walk the Line. This is less of an exploration of Dylan?s life than it is about his persona and particularly its evolution. To do this, Todd Haynes has created six characters that represent separate Dylan personas. Each of these six characters is played by a different person and is shot with a different film stock. None of these characters are actually named Bob Dylan and it is questionable whether they are actually supposed to be linked. This isn?t nearly as disorienting as it sounds and there is a method to this madness. The problem though, is that some of these segments work better than others.

The first segment depicts a young Dylan as played by an eleven year old African American child named Marcus Carl Franklin. This young man, who goes by the name Woody Guthrie, is meant to represent the Dylan youth of myth rather than reflect his actual childhood. This is why Haynes went to the extreme length of changing Dylan?s race, it is meant to show that these stories Dylan made up about his youth were supposed to be outlandish, that they were never meant to be taken seriously. These segments, shot in lush 35mm, are actually some of the most enjoyable parts of the movie. It is really understandable why Dylan would make up this type of story, it?s some of the most entertaining stuff here. Franklin, interestingly gives one of the film?s most memorable and interesting performances, this kid may have a good future ahead of him.

The second person to play Dylan is the relatively unknown Ben Whishaw. Whishaw probably has the least screen time of all these characters and his character is less specifically tied to any single period in Dylan?s life. His character, Arthur Rimbaud, appears to be Dylan before fame but after he emerged on the New York folk scene. These portions of the film are shot on grainy, cheap looking black and white film stock in a fashion that appears to be mimicking the D.A. Pennebaker documentary Don?t Look Back. Rimbaud mainly enters into the film time to time via interview footage in order to act as something of a conscience for the various characters.

The third portion of the film, and one of the less compelling shows Dylan during his glory folk days. Here he is called Jack Rollins and is played by Christian Bale. Haynes doesn?t seem to have many insights into Dylan at this stage. The Rollins version mainly only seems to be here in order to establish his relationships, and act as a face during a somewhat misguided diversion into mockumentary. This is also the only version of the character that is allowed to change without switching actors. It is Rollins as played by Bale, not some other performer, who is present during the Christian part of Dylans life. This was mainly done to underscore that this born-again version of Dylan really was the same guy who wrote ?Blowing in the Wind.? Bale appropriately looks more like the real Dylan than any of the other actors. In the movie Blae looks nearly identical to Dylan?s photograph on the cover of ?The Freewheelin? Bob Dylan.? However Bale is never really given the screen time to do much with his performance other than imitate. Also problematic is the aforementioned mockumentary footage which slows down the film and is a little to cute about replacing Dylan?s name with the name Jack Rollins.

The fourth and probably most talked about persona is that of Jude Quinn, as played by Cate Blanchet. I don?t know what Todd Haynes was smoking when he came up with the idea of casting Cate Blanchet as Bob Dylan, but I?m glad he was smoking it, as this is one of the most compelling potions of the film. Jude Quinn represents Dylan as he went electric and was shunned for it. These segments, shot in slick high contrast black and white, take a surreal approach and borrow the visual style of Fellini?s 8 ½. These segments work the best mainly because they contain the most interesting conflict throughout the film. Quinn finds himself at odds with his fans massively over-reacting as he tries to change his musical style. This conflict eventually manifests itself in Quinn?s war of words with a spiteful journalist played by Bruce Greenwood named Keenan Jones (yes, the Mr. Jones). Cate Blanchet?s give one of the most unique and interesting you?re likely to see for a while; she not only gets the look and mannerisms of ?Blonde on Blonde? era Dylan, but she also manages to convey his internal struggles very well. Interesting as this persona is, a little bit of it goes a long way, and this is where the film started to drag a little bit. There is one really unpleasant scene in some kind of art gallery with Dylan tripping out, that really tried my patience.

The next persona is that of Robbie Clark as played by Heath Ledger. This is the persona of Dylan as he exited the public eye and focused on more personal troubles. Interestingly, Clark is not supposed to be a musician as these other personas were, but rather an actor who co-stared with him in a movie called Grain of Salt. The idea here is that this is the real Dylan finally emerging while the other personas were all roles to some degree. Ledger pretty effectively plays on of the most down to earth roles in the film, and is also the best part of these segments. This portion is where the film began to confuse me a little, possibly because my main resource on Dylan?s life was No Direction Home which cut off after Dylan?s motorcycle accident. Ledger is what really keeps this portion working because this is where the film really begins to drag.

The sixth and final segment of the film frankly makes the casting of Blanchet seem completely natural. This portion features Richard Gere as Billy the Kid. Billy roams through some vast landscape modeled somewhat after the old west, but decorated like some kind of crazy circus. The setting seems to be some kind of crazy Americana mishmash. What occurs at this point is completely surreal and trippy. I?m sure Haynes had some sort of grandiose intention for this scene, but to be perfectly honest, it mostly just weirded me out. Clearly this has something to do with Dylan?s role in Sam Peckenpah?s Pat Garret and Billy the Kid, but I frankly can?t figure out what the point is otherwise except that it leads to a fairly nifty ending that brings everything full circle.

Unlike the pretentious and plodding musical biopic La Vie En Rose, Haynes has a very compelling reason for employing such an outlandish format. The film is about changes, why Dylan changed and how Dylan changed. The use of different actors accentuates these changes in a way that makes it very easy to separate them over the course of the film. The film places many of these segments out of chronological order, but unlike La Vie En Rose (which used such a tactic for seemingly no reason other than to differentiate it from other biopics), this is done for a very specific reason. Had Haynes maintained a chronological order the film would have felt extremely episodic, almost like a collection of short films rather than a single whole. Also unlike La Vie En Rose this chronology never felt disorienting because of the multiple actors and film stocks (although in all fairness to La Vie En Rose, I knew significantly more about Dylan ahead of time than I did about Edith Piaf).

Those looking for musical performances of major Dylan hits may go away disappointed. I?m Not There?s soundtrack focuses more on album tracks than on major hits. ?Blowing in the Wind? and ?All Along the Watchtower? only make very brief appearances and ?Like a Rolling stone? isn?t heard until the end credits. However the film is not without its musical moments. There is a very nice, if brief, bluesy take on ?Tombstone Blues? during the Marcus Carl Franklin segment, and there?s a very well performed version of the song ?Pressing on? from Dylan?s mostly forgotten Christian period during Christian Bale segment. But the real musical highlight here comes during a great montage in the Cate Blanchet segment where ?The Ballad of a Thin Man? is performed by the Cate Blanchet persona as Mr. Jones finds himself embarrassed and begins to fight back.

I?m Not There is a sprawling, ambitious film that sometimes feels like a bit of a glorious mess. What?s missing here is the happy ending where Dylan emerges from obscurity in the 90s to make Grammy winning albums like Time Out of Mind. Martin Scorsese wisely choose to end his No Direction Home documentary at Dylan?s motorcycle accident giving it a fairly simple rise and fall narrative. In going pat this point but not as far as Dylan?s 90s comeback, Haynes has basically made a film about how Dylan went from being the voice of a generation to being a boring jerk, and that is not a particularly compelling character arc.

Of the six narratives, I loved the Franklin one, was indifferent to the Whitshaw one, had grave problems with the Bale segments, felt mixed feelings about the Blanchet parts, slight boredom during the Ledger parts, and was downright confused by the Richard Gere parts. A simple tally of this would seem to suggest I rather disliked I?m Not There, but that?s not really the case. Even in the segments that didn?t really seem to work as a whole there were a lot of moments that I really loved and the whole film generally manages to flow with a certain disjointed energy. There are a lot of good and interesting performances here that are well worth checking out. The film is definitely worth checking out if only to admire Todd Haynes? genuine experimentation but one should be warned that your enjoyment of the film would seem to be directionally proportional to how much you like Dylan. Like my own opinion Dylan himself, there is a lot here to turn me off, but also a lot of individual parts that I really liked. It?s a film that keeps making me want to come back to it in my mind, if only out of respect.

They say that all of western civilization began with the ancient Greeks. The Greeks gave us the philosophy of Socrates and the literature of Homer. The new film 300 displays another legacy of ancient Greece, the badass. The Spartan warrior as seen in author Frank Miller?s 300 are the prototypical badasses, their warrior ethic and determination towards victory can be seen in the chivalric knight, the cowboys of western lore, and even the Klingons of ?Star Trek?.
Based on a Frank Miller graphic novel, 300 takes place in 480 BCE at the dawn of the Greco-Persian war. A Persian messenger approaches the Spartan city-state holding a bag of skulls and asks for an audience with the king. After asking King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) to pay tribute to the Persian Empire or face an oncoming attack, the messenger is pushed to his death into a well by the angry king. The scene perfectly sets up the uncompromising nature of the Spartan warrior; they are completely unwilling to or yield to any authority but their own. After Leonidas is given an unfavorable prophecy by an oracle, he is unable to bring his entire army to war. In desperation Leonidas rounds up three hundred of Sparta?s best soldiers, leaves his wife (Lena Headey) behind, and marches to war against an army of millions. This is the type of story that really shows the power visuals. As a conventional novel, this story would be nothing special at all, but in a visual medium like comic books or film, and in the hands of an artist like Frank Miller it is gorgeous.
300 can best be understood when one realizes that the film is being told by an unreliable narrator. The film is being told by Dilios (David Wenham) a soldier at the battle with a unique ability for story telling. Dilios narrates the entire movie through a flashback with voice over. Dilios is not telling the story as a historian but as a propagandist. The movie is an extended exaggeration, the characters are not human, they are unwavering fighting machines that are jingoistic enough to make John Wayne blush. Collage students will be getting hammered for decades with the inevitable drinking game that will be made around the number of times the word ?Sparta!? is hollered by noble fighters going into battle. The Persian enemies are every bit as inaccurate, they are faceless enemies, their leader Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) the personification of decadence. Some of the Persian troops can only be described as monsters. All this is the result of Dilios? story which is meant to rile the troops to enthusiastically go to war.
It should be noted that director Zack Snyder is merely building on the foundation that was first built by Robert Rodríguez with another adaptation of a Frank Miller work: Sin City. Sin City was an exercise in translation; it was a frame for frame moving recreation of the comic books it based on, both in story and visual style. 300 is a far less slavish translation of its source material, but it does follow the same basic story and does effectively reproduce the look of Miller?s stunning illustrations. 300 was filmed using the same blue screen filming process of Sin City and takes it to the next level, the viewer forgets he is watching action on a soundstage and becomes immersed in the visual universe. With this type of film making we are entering uncharted territories of production. It may be about time the Academy separates its category of art direction from set decoration. The set decoration is much here, as there are no sets, but the art direction is amazing. The design of the visuals is a true work of art.
Sin City took the tradition of film Noir and took it to a glorious extreme; likewise 300 takes the ?Sword and Sandals? genre as far as it can possibly go. Unlike most post-Lord of the Rings epics, 300 doesn?t rely on helicopter shots of massive armies mashing into each other, although the shots of huge armies are up to the standards of those other movie. In place of these long shots, 300 focuses on the personal side of its battles, many of the battles play out by focusing on a single soldier bursting forth is slow motion, showing each kill he make in graphic detail. The visceral thrill of these moments is hard to put into words. Interestingly these moments resemble a quarterback expertly making it through the line of scrimmage on a running play; it?s easy to see why sports were encouraged as military training.
The story told by Dilios is based largely on old fashioned views of masculinity. On its surface, 300 is the most gleefully pro-war film since the Rambo series. All parallels to recent events are coincidence as the graphic novel was published in 1998. Still there is an ultimately conservative attitude to this story that can be unsettling to blue-staters like me. Nevertheless it would be hypocritical to dismiss a film of ideological differences and then scoff at the conservatives who would criticize a film like Fahrenheit 9/11. In truth however, if one considers that the story told may be a fabrication by Dilios to mobilize the army, the simplicity of the film?s ideology becomes a lot less simple. The film leaves it to the viewer whether a society based on the principle that not all men are equal and which that sacrifices imperfect babies is worth emulating.
Though it has a simple story, 300 is a visually amazing film. It is highly entertaining, with amazing action scenes. The visual style is much more interesting then that of the typical summer movie. The movie is first rate, cutting edge filmmaking. Its main weakness is that it would be only a little less interesting if the dialogue track were removed. Its main strength is that it would be very interesting even without the dialogue track.

Knocked up is one of the most creative unoriginal movies ever made. A simple plot summery will sound like a movie we?ve all seen many times. The expecting mother storyline has been a staple of T.V. sitcoms since season 2 of I Love Lucy. What sets Knocked Up apart is the execution, the jokes are funnier, the characters are more likable and the message comes across better than most other movies of its type.
The film centers around two worlds. The world of Alison Scott (Katherine Heigl) is that of average suburbia. Alison is a journalist for the ?E!? cable network, she makes decent money and is close to her sister Debbie (Leslie Mann). The other world is that of Ben Stone (Seth Rogen) a stoner who lives with four other roommates in a messy house. He has been living of a fourteen thousand dollar check he received a few years prior when a mail truck ran him over and has plans to start a website not unlike Mrskin.com. These two worlds collide when Alison is impregnated by Ben during a drunken one night stand. With the prospect a baby coming along Ben and Alison must get to know one another and get their affairs in order before the child is born.
Knocked Up was directed by Judd Apatow, the exciting new filmmaker who created the cult T.V. show Freaks and Geeks and 2005?s hilarious sleeper hit The 40 Year Old Virgin. Knocked Up is clearly in the same vein as The 40 Year Old Virgin, it?s filled with colorful but realistic and believable characters delivering very funny, profanity laced, dialogue. Unlike The 40 Year Old Virgin, however, Knocked Up has a distinctly feminine half to it. This will likely open up the audience that this will play well to.
The humor style here is well crafted. The film delivers R-rated humor without resorting to the type gross out physical humor many R-rated comedies tend to fall prey too. Rather the film is mercifully free of any lame physical comedy, instead it relies on great dialogue to make laughs, which is great because the film provides great dialogue in droves. The film is also free of absurdism, a form of comedy this reviewer generally can?t stand.
The cast here is mostly excellent. Seth Rogen effectively proves that he can hold a feature film, this feature film anyway. It?s hard to see Rogen becoming a regular comedy star like Steve Carell, but this roll was right for him and he does it well. I doubt Rogen really brings all that much to the roll that another solid frat packer like Vince Vaughn wouldn?t have, but that shouldn?t diminish his success. Katherine Heigl is also great here, she?s in somewhat of a ?straight man? roll here which makes her performance a little less noticeable, but she?s still good at what she?s needed to do.
It?s the supporting performances however that really make this work. All of Ben?s slacker friend/roommates are cast perfectly and add tremendously to the humor. Many movies like this focus so heavily on making the main character funny and reserves supporting players to merely being quirky presences that one-liners get bounced off of, here however all of these supporting performances toss just as many funny lines as the lead. Plenty of humor also comes from Alison?s sister Debbie and her dysfunctional marriage to Pete (Paul Rudd).
Knocked Up is filled with unorthodox pop culture references for those in the know. While many lesser movies like Epic Movie drop references to whatever is making the most money at the time, Knocked Up references such relative obscurities as In The Cut, Tombstone, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The film also sports a very decent, very eclectic, soundtrack that features artists and bands as diverse as Sublime, The Scorpions, and Ol? Dirty Bastard.
Not all of the movie works perfectly, firstly it warms up for a while before it really gets going, there aren?t nearly as many hard laughs as there should be for the first fifteen to twenty minutes. Conversely, the movie begins to loose some steam towards the end when Alison begins going into labor, we?ve all seen this before, a screaming, swearing, woman in labor deciding whether or not to use painkillers.
Another problematic element is a character named Jodi (Charlyne Yi) who hangs around with Ben?s circle of stoned slackers. She?s a bizarre, inarticulate, seemingly retarded character. All the scenes involving her seem to fall flat.
Despite these problems, as a whole Knocked Up is a lot funnier than most movies coming out of Hollywood. Ultimately it isn?t as good a The 40 Year Old Virgin, there are probably as many laughs, but the laughs in the previous Apatow movie were simply deeper belly laughs. Still The 40 Year Old Virgin isn?t a half bad thing to be second best to.

It seems that every year a movie emerges whose identity is so completely tied to its chances of winning an Oscar that its actually strengths or weaknesses begin to take a back seat. People talk so much about the odds of the film getting an Oscar that they forget to talk about the movie itself; often this actually leads movies like Cold Mountain and Dreamgirls to not even be nominated. This year the overhyped Oscar frontrunner is Joe Wright?s Atonement, an epic romance based on the uber-acclaimed Ian McEwan novel of the same name.
The film is set in 1935 England on a country estate owned by a wealthy man named Jack Tallis. Jack has two daughters; the first is the thirteen year old Briony (Saoirse Ronan) who has taken to writing. The other daughter, Cecilia (Keira Knightley), is in her twenties and has become engaging in some sly flirtations with the housekeeper?s son, Robbie Turner (James McAvoy). Through a series of misunderstandings, the young Briony comes to believe that Turner is a sexual pervert, and because of this she baselessly accuses him of a sexual assault that had occurred on the estate. Turner is sent to prison and is eventually let out to join the army when World War two begins. Before they are separated, Turner and Cecilia declare their love for one another.
Atonement is a hard film to summarize, and an even harder film to discuss, without revealing many of the film?s twists. From the description, it would be easy to confuse this for a Merchant-Ivory style costume drama, but that is not accurate at all. Though the film begins at a country estate, the film does not delve into all the usual issues of class and etiquette one would expect from such a setting. After the film?s first act that setting is abandoned and the film ventures into the wider world of WW2 era England.
Part of what makes the film special is that it never reveals what its central conflict is going to be. Initial it appears to be a conventional romantic conflict with Robbie trying to win over the heart of Cecilia, then it appears to turn into a Homeric story of a man trying to return to his lover, then the story?s perspective unexpectedly shifts and the film goes down a different and more unique path. Because I don?t want to reveal this perspective shift and its importance, this review is going to be very hard to write.
Because perspective is such a prevalent theme in the film, it must employ a variety of tricks to allow various scenes to be seen from multiple points of view. This is one of the elements of the movie that works best. The film consistently employs interesting tricks to depict the passage of time and tell parallel stories.
The performances here are all solid but not transcendent, mainly because the actors avoid showing off. You will find no Academy baiting in the acting here, which is in some ways a relief. James McAvoy has the most actively transformative performance here and must be believable on both a country estate and the Normandy battlefield. McAvoy (who was Forrest Forest Whitaker?s scene partner is last year?s The Last King of Scotland) really makes his presence known here. Keira Knightley, who doesn?t have as much screen time as the film?s advertising would leave you to believe, is also quite nice as Cecilia. Finally there is the character of Briony who is played by Saoirse Ronan at 13, and later by Romola Garai at 18. Both actresses manage to convince the audience that they are playing the same person. I?m not sure whether Garai was trying to play an older Ronan or if Ronan was playing a younger Garai or they both planned it out, either way someone did a great job in the role.
Joe Wright emerged in 2005 with a fairly solid adaptation of Pride and Prejudice. Though that Jane Austin novel was a work the world did not need another adaptation of, Wrights ambitious visual style was a breath of fresh air; it was a bad project to establish a directorial style with. Here Wright is again using crisp cinematography but with a more subdued color pallet to match the slightly more melancholy story. Gone are the widescreen vistas of Pride and Prejudice, though they appear to still be present in the first act, they disappear as soon as the war starts. That doesn?t mean Joe Wright has taken to some sort of neo-realist approach, it just means that his style has been adjusted to fit the mood of this very different source material. The highlight of Wrights visual trick bag is a five minute tracking shot showing the Dunkirk beach during the evacuation. The extended tracking shot is an old trick that?s been used many times before, but it hasn?t quite worn out its appeal yet, it is still a very impressive stunt.
Less successful is Dario Marianelli?s overbearing orchestral score that seeks to guide the viewer through the film?s emotional peaks and valleys with very little subtlety. This is not bad music, but it does become an annoyance, the sound mix places way too much emphasis on it. Marianelli also made the poor decision to incorporate the sound of a typewriter into the score and use it to mark moments of thought and emotion that occurs onscreen, but ultimately only annoys the viewer.
What really justifies this film and makes everything really come together is a very strong ending which I wouldn?t even dream of giving away. I?ll just say that it is a very creative ending that is completely unexpected, but also a little bit abrupt.
Ultimately Atonement is a very strong piece of work that avoided all the literary clichés I was afraid it would fall into. I wish I could talk more about it without spoiling it, but I think my vague descriptions will ultimately help the viewer more than a spoiler heavy review. This is a well made movie that I have a lot of respect for, but I wish it hadn?t waited until the last fifteen minutes to really explain itself, everything before feels like an elaborate set-up to a great reveal. This is a movie that?s easier to respect then love, but still it should definitely be seen.
***1/2 out of four

This is England is a film that rests on its ability to recreate a time and place. In this case that setting is the town of Nottingham, England during the early eighties. Times are bad in the UK, Margret Thatcher is in power, the economy is in trouble, and the Falkland war is raging. It is not these things that the film focuses on, but rather the emergence of the skinhead sub-culture and how it rapidly turned from a relatively harmless style choice into a disturbing racist movement that continues to this day.
This story is told from the perspective of a twelve year old boy named Shaun (Thomas Turgoose), who?s new to the area and whose father has recently been killed in the Falkland war. Ostracized by his fellow students, Shaun finds himself falling in with a group of skinheads lead by the charismatic teenager named Woody (Joseph Gilgun). These skinheads are nothing like the violent racists seen in films like American History X, rather they seem like a clique with a unified style not unlike the punk scene. The group wares dock Martens, suspenders, and have shaved heads but they are not racist; in fact the members is a black Jamaican named Milky (Andrew Shim). This harmonious nature comes to a screeching halt when an old friend of Woody?s named Combo (Stephen Graham) returns from jail and brings with him every negative trait skinheads are now known for. Shaun finds himself having to choose between the racist and non racist sects of the movement.
Deep down this film is less about skinheads or racism than it is about the coming of age of the Shaun character. The film has a lot in common with François Truffaut?s The 400 Blows, and includes an unmistakable reference to that new wave classic at the end. Like that film, This is England places a shockingly young kid in a very rough environment. The original clique Shaun joins isn?t racist, but it certainly isn?t what one would call wholesome, and when he falls in with Combo his future really begins to look grim. Turgoose?s performance is key to the film?s success, bad child actors can easily ruin a movie, but fortunately Turgoose manages to pull off a very good performance here.
Even more impressive are the performances of Joseph Gilgun and Stephen Graham. Both of these actors have the challenge of being believable role models for Shaun despite the unsavory aspects of their characters. Gilgum manages to seem like a very likable and charismatic person even though he has a shaved head and looks like he?s wearing a Clockwork Orange outfit. He has to make the audience believe that he could attract Shaun into this world, and at the same time he has to make sure he doesn?t appear menacing. Graham has an even bigger challenge in that he has to play someone who will attract Shaun into an even more unsavory group. Furthermore, Graham must feel like a charismatic and persuasive personality, while acting like a raving maniac. This is a brilliant performance that reminds the viewer of Edward Norton?s powerful work in American History X.
A big challenge the film has is that it tries to do more than simply criticize racism; it also tries to explain how people become racists. The characters here are living in a flawed society and they have a number of things to be legitimately mad about. Unfortunately they choose to focus their rage in terrible ways and at innocent scapegoats. The film really makes you believe that Shaun could fall into this crowd and shows how the initially positive skinhead movement could become so perverted. It?s a fascinating look at a strange and often dark sub-culture I knew little about before I saw it. Visually, the film isn?t overly impressive. The film?s look is competent throughout, but rarely rises above the level of average throughout. Still the power of this story and these performances is enough for me to strongly recommend the film to those looking for a challenging film about race, sub-cultures, and a coming of age story.

Spain has recently emerged as one of the most important European countries for film productions. It?s no coincidence that Spain is tied with Germany as the nation that has won the most foreign language Oscars this decade. The Spanish film industry has produced such great cinematic talents as Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, Alejandro Amenábar, and of course the great Pedro Almodóvar. Spain is also a frequent stomping ground for the great Mexican genre filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, who choose to make his recent crossover hit Pan?s Labyrinth in Spain. Now Guillermo del Toro, acting as a producer, has made a film with a man who could well end up on the same level as the aforementioned filmmakers: Juan Antonio Bayona.
The film is set in an old abandoned orphanage on the coast of Spain and centers on a woman named Laura (Belén Rueda) who was briefly raised at this orphanage and now wants to restore it. Laura is raising an adopted child named Simón (Roger Príncep) with her husband Carlos (Fernando Cayo), and soon plans to bring a new set of children to be raised at the orphanage. As Laura prepares to re-open the orphanage, Simón begins to tell her about a number of imaginary friends he?s made, who she dismisses as the result of loneliness and boredom. But Simón continues to act increasingly strange until finally he disappears in one of the film?s most intense scenes. Distraught, Laura begins to explore what happened to Simón and begin examining the supernatural as a possibility, she continues on a search that leads her to uncover the Orphanage?s grizzly history and the frightening secrets within.
The Orphanage is by no means the most original film you?ll see this year, in fact several of its features will be quite familiar. The story at first feels like a take on The Sixth Sense, before it becomes something more along the lines of The Haunting. Like many other ghost stories the film uses creepy children to freak the audience out, and it also has a scene with a psychic medium straight out of Poltergiest. Additionally Bayona seems to idolize del Toro a little too much as the setting is very reminiscent of del Toro?s The Devil?s Backbone, and the ending (though very good) feels a bit too close to Pan?s Labyrinth for comfort. However, it is in the way that these familiar elements are so perfectly brought together and perfectly executed that makes The Orphanage such an effective thriller, it?s as if they took every play from the ghost story playbook and brought them all together in just the right order.
I?m generally unimpressed by horror films because they all too frequently fail to actually scare me. In fact, I?m not sure I?ve ever been scared by a movie, not even by classics like The Exorcist. I?m not trying to sound like some kind of tough guy, in fact I?m the first to admit that I?m a complete coward whenever it comes to real life situations, just never when it comes to movies. Though I?ve never found myself ?scared,? every once in a while one will get under my skin and make me shiver; further, I do react to suspense, tension and the occasional cheap jump scene. As such, The Orphanage is like the perfect horror film for me; this is filled with great atmosphere and manages to build the tension perfectly, than has something jump out at you at just the right moment.
This is a film with no discernable CGI, at least none related to the moments that are supposed to scare you, and it also as almost no gore. This flies in the face of even the best horror movies coming out of Hollywood (or anywhere else for that matter) recently. Even the (few) major successes of the genre lately have either had to resort to gore (The Decent), or CGI (The Ring), but not The Orphanage. This is a film that relies almost entirely on traditional techniques to provide scares, namely disturbing imagery and straight up suspense. It takes a real stroke of brilliance to be able to get so much suspense out of a door closing.
The major selling point here is the suspense and the scares, but these are backed up by a strong, if not overly original, story. Part of the movie?s brilliance is that it actually provides the main character with a plausible reason not to simply get the hell out of the haunted orphanage while she still has a chance, namely that she is trying to find her son, who she believes has been kidnapped by the ghosts present in the orphanage. The Laura character and her desperation really shine through here, thanks in part to Belén Rueda?s great performance. I also really liked how the script managed to set things up in an unobtrusive way and bring them back later on. However, this script does fall back on cliché a bit more than I had hoped from a Guillermo del Toro production. This is not really the first time we?ve seen any of elements on display here, it?s just that they?re rarely all done this well in a single movie.
It?s ultimately this lack of true originality that just keeps The Orphanage from being something truly great, which is unfortunate because this really could have been the ultimate ghost story. However, that should not diminish the fact that this is a very solid thriller that deserves to be seen on the large screen where its atmosphere and tension can really play out. I?m very excited to see what first time director Juan Antonio Bayona does next, as this is a truly solid debut. I?m inclined to wonder what Bayona could have done if he had made 1408, which was probably the more original haunting film made this year, but it wasn?t nearly as tense or downright freaky as this. If the best elements of both films had come together that would really make one hell of a ghost story.
***1/2 out of four

The German auteur Werner Herzog is a better icon than he is a director. His technical skill as a filmmaker is shaky at best and his stories are hardly groundbreaking literature. Its is instead Herzog?s personality, filtered through a camera lens, that makes his films so intriguing. Herzog is a crazy ambitious filmmaker and he makes crazy ambitious films. His characters are as larger than life as the man who created them. When he?s not busy chronicling these people he makes points about the harshness of nature, a force he avoids romanticizing at all costs. Herzog?s last film, the popular documentary Grizzly Man, combined Herzog?s views of nature with a real life figure of Herzogian vision and madness. In his new feature film, Rescue Dawn, Herzog again makes his statement about nature, but for the first time he gets to do it with a major studio budget.
The film tells the true story of Dieter Dengler (Christian Bale), a German born American citizen who joined the navy a year before the Vietnam war in order to continue his interest in aviation. On a secret bombing mission to Laos Dengler?s plane was shot down and he was placed in a Laotian prisoner of war camp deep in enemy territory. At this camp he meets a handful of Asian prisoners and two Americans, Duane Martin (Steve Zahn) and Eugene DeBruin (Jeremy Davies). Duane seems fairly stable, but Eugene seems to have been driven insane by his years of imprisonment, he?s grown long hair and generally acts a lot like Dennis Hopper at the end of Apocalypse Now. Dieter however has a very positive outlook; he knows he needs to escape. Dieter encourages the rest of the prisoners to escape, but in the jungles of Laos prisons don?t end at the gate.
Dieter Dengler?s story was first told in Werner Herzog?s 1997 documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly, a work that has been praised by some, but remains unseen by me. Since the documentary was released Dieter Dengler died of Lou Gehrig?s disease at the age of 63. Dieter?s story is ultimately a story of triumph with an uplifting ending. It?s easy to picture a much different movie had this been put in the hands of a more conventional Hollywood filmmaker. What we could have gotten was a cross between Top Gun and The Great Escape instead we?ve gotten a far less marketable and much more thoroughly Herzog piece of work.
The movie has two distinct halves with what are essentially a prologue and an epilogue book ending them. This is not an overly traditional structure, but it works for the story. After a brief opening on the ship Dieter is stationed on, the film goes straight into its first half; the POW camp. The POW camp seems thoroughly grim, but it isn?t much more shocking than anything we?ve seen before. The prison does not seem as hellish as something like Midnight Express, but this gives it an extra feeling of authenticity, after all just because they?re the enemy there?s no reason to believe the Laotian?s are monsters. The environment is bad enough to make you want the escape successful without going over the top.
The second part details Dieter and Duane?s struggle for survival out in the jungle. Herzog?s view of nature is in full swing here. The film tries to feel like an adventure film, Denglers trek through a harsh environment is never romanticized. It is in fact humanity that overcomes the obstacles; nature does not help Dengler at any point. This second part is actually stronger than the first part; this half is what really makes the film worth seeing.
Christian Bale has proven himself to be one of the best actors of his generation; here he expands his pallet even further. Bale has made a name for himself playing depressed, brooding characters like Bruce Wayne in Batman Begins, the Magician who takes his job too seriously in The Prestige, or the freakishly skinny title character in The Machinist. Dieter Dengler however is neither depressed nor brooding, his positive outlook is essential in fact because that?s what compels him to escape. Bale straangly decides not to bother with Dengler?s German accent, but otherwise completely pulls off the role. Bale does not dominate however as Steve Zahn is also solid as Dengler?s prison comrade Duane Martin. Jeremy Davies is also appropriately creepy as Eugene DeBruin from Eugene, Oregon.
One should not mistake Rescue Dawn for a depressing ride through hellish experiences, it is ultimately a story of human perseverance against the odds and it does end with a well earned catharsis. What?s interesting is that this story has all the elements of a typical Hollywood movie, and these are all muted by a strong willed filmmaker who isn?t whoreing his movie for optimum audience pleasing appeal. What?s particularly noteworthy is that the eventual triumph at the end feels all the more sweet because it doesn?t feel like the result of Hollywood trickery and manipulation, instead it feels like authentic triumph as a result of an authentic story.
Herzog?s technical filmmaking skill is a lot better here than it has been on many of his previous fiction films. The cinematography is nice, the editing works, the sets seem real, and reportedly the shoot went pretty smoothly. MGM provided Herzog with a ten million dollar budget, much more money than Herzog has ever worked with. Still, this is an unmistakable work of Herzog filmmaking, budget or no budget. There are many memorable scenes, most particularly a scene where Dengler hunts a snake, and a scene where Dengler is almost saved by a helicopter.
Dieter Dengler?s story was worth telling and worth hearing. At the end of the day the most interesting thing about Rescue Dawn is just how different it could have been in other people?s hands. Herzog brings all the usual themes of his work to the projects with less of the drawbacks. It isn?t a masterpiece at all, but it will defiantly please fans of Herzog and more casual audiences who want to hear Dieter Dengler?s amazing story.

Judd Apatow is a on top of the comedy world right now. Apatow has been behind my two favorite comedies of the last three years that didn?t involve anyone saying ?U-S and A?, those two films being Knocked Up and The 40 Year Old Virgin. Both of these movies managed to take high concept stories and made them hilarious largely because of they A. had absolutely laugh out loud hilarious and profane dialogue between established groups of friends, and B. had real human stories to contain the aforementioned dialogue. The new film Superbad, is largely considered to be Apatow?s follow up to Knocked Up, which is strange considering Apatow neither wrote nor directed the film, he merely produced the film along with three other credited producers. Television director Greg Mottola was the director, but the comparisons to Apatow?s two previous projects are valid, Superbad takes the idea behind those two projects, executes them nearly as well, and the result is another great comedy from team Apatow.

I started my review of Judd Apatow?s last project, Knocked Up, I said it was one of the most original unoriginal movies ever made. I?m tempted to recycle that line again for his new project Superbad, it takes a stock storyline we?ve seen done a thousand time and finally does it right. While The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up largely focused on a single character ad his circle of friends, Superbad acts as more of an ensemble piece between three characters. The two characters at the center of the film are Seth (Jonah Hill) and Evan (Michael Cera) two unpopular high school seniors who will be going to different collages the next year. The two manage to get themselves invited to a party where their respective crushes Jules (Emma Stone) and Becca (Martha MacIsaac) will both be attending and, as Seth hopes, be drunk and horny. The catch is, the two are expeted to be supplying the alcohol at the party and the person in possetion of the fake I.D. they claimed to have is Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), a nerdy figure who seems to be a secondary friend to the pair. Getting the booze to the party turns out to be far more complicated than either of the boys imagined. The pair and Fogell are separated; Seth and Evan find themselves at the redneck house party from Hell, while Fogell is given a ride by the two most irresponsible police officers this side of Bad Lieutenant.

The plot of Superbad makes it sound like the same raunchy teen comedy you?ve been watching for years. The difference is that Superbad isn?t really a teen movie, it?s an adult comedy about teens, that?s not to say teens won?t enjoy it (they will), but there?s more going on here than the hormone fueled hijinx of something like Porkey?s. It may be hard for many audiences to understand the sophistication of a film that has 186 uses of the F-word, a joke involving period blood, and an adolescent with a fake ID involving identifying him as McLovin (no first name, just Mclovin), but there is a reason for all this. The dialogue is profane, but if you listen to the way actual way 17 year old male adolescents talk, you?ll find this is simply an accurate portrayal.

Superbad has more in common with Linklater?s Dazed and Confused than it does with American Pie. The movie seems to be made with a certain sense of nostalgia, not for any era (the film is set in modern times) but for youth in general. The film explores many of the issues covered in Alfonso Curon?s Y Tu Mama Tambien except in a far more comedic way. The relationship between Seth and Evan feels real, and their eventual coming of age revelations are cathartic. The story seems to come from a very personal place. It is probably not a coincidence that the film?s writers are named Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. I?ll admit that the moral story here is not masterful, it certainly can?t live up to a dramatic story covering the same topics (like the aforementioned Y Tu Mama Tambien) but this part of the movie comes off a lot better than the seemingly thoughtless humor of something like Talladega Nights.

This talk of the underlying messages about coming of age may be misleading, all that is there, but this is a sex comedy first and a coming of age movie second. What?s really important here is the film?s comedy, and that works very well. Most of the humor derives from the witty banter between Seth and Evan. I could sit and listen to these guys go at it for hours. There are also a lot of crazy happenings, but they never delve too far into the bizarre, the film does mostly take place in the real world. Some of the behavior of the police officers begins to delve outside the film?s reality, but by this point the film is working so well the viewer doesn?t care.

One thing the film gets right is to cast actors who actually look like real teenagers. Three of the five actors in teenage parts are under twenty, this works a lot better than the twenty-something actors that are usually cast in this type of movies. The actors also look a lot more like real people than the cast of models that tend that fill up movies like American Pie. Jonah Hill has been in a lot of poor comedies recently like Accepted and Grandma?s Boy, but here he prove that he can work when he?s given better material. Michael Cera, who made his name on the cult sitcom Arrested Development, has to basically be a straight-man but also hold his own in a lot of funny conversations. Christopher Mintz-Plasse makes his screen debut as Fogell (a character who will forever be remembered as McLovin), creates a character who almost steals the show. Writer Seth Rogen and under-rated ?Saturday Night Live? cast member Bill Hader play the two police officers in the film and both seem to have a great chemistry that keeps these two strange characters from seeming to absurd to work.

Judd Apatow?s troupe is by far the most successful group in film comedy today. This is the third straight success from them, and will easily be a classic of the teen sex-comedy genre. The comedy is hilarious, the story holds up, and the comic acting is great. The movie?s plot is familiar without being derivative. Here?s hoping Apatow?s winning streak keeps going. The movie isn?t for the easily offended, but those who don?t mind this kind of humor will find the movie Supergood (sorry I couldn?t resist.)

It has become increasingly evident that one should never judge a movie directed by Craig Brewster by its trailer. The trailer to Brewster?s debut film Hustle & Flow made it look like a clichéd rags to riches gangster hip-hop movie, a genre that is quickly becoming the blaxploitation genre of the 21st century. Instead audiences got was a touching and thoughtful, intelligent and yet crowd-pleasing take on the American dream achieved through music. The trailer for Brewster?s new film Black Snake Moan makes the film look like some kind of soft core porn that Samuel L. Jackson wandered into as some sort of post-Snakes on a Plane camp binge. This trailer isn?t any more accurate then the Hustle and Flow trailer, Black Snake Moan is in fact one of the most unique experiences you?re likely to find in a multi-plex.
Samuel L. Jackson plays Lazarus, an aging Tennessee pea farmer and former blues man going through a bitter divorce. One morning he finds an attractive, half naked, white woman named Rae (Christina Ricci) lying unconscious on the road outside his house. After nursing Rae back to health Lazarus discovers that she is a nymphomaniac who has been sleeping around, a lot, ever since her fiancé (Justin Timberlake) shipped out to Iraq. Lazurus decides to take it upon himself to ?cure [her] of [her] wickedness? by chaining her to a radiator and making her essentially go cold turkey.
It should first be said that the use of nymphomania is not a sleazy attempt to put Christina Ricci?s character into sexual situations. Rae?s disorder is treated as a serious mental disorder, much the way drug or alcohol addiction is treated in many other films. Black Snake Moan is the best exploration of sex addiction since the 2002 Bob Crane bio-pic Auto Focus. The film is also not naïve enough to think that a few weeks chained to a radiator will solve all of this troubled girl?s problems.
With Black Snake Moan Brewster has a much harder task then he did with Hustle and Flow. Hustle and Flow had the benefit of working within a genre that has produced a large number of lackluster films for it to look great in comparison to. It is hard to classify Black Snake Moan, it?s too quirky to be considered a drama. It is also doesn?t try to make the audience laugh out loud as a comedy would. It fits perhaps into the tradition of The French New Wave by way of Pulp Fiction, but not to the extent that those films often broke the fourth wall. It is also a musical of sorts, though music here is more of a backdrop then it was in Hustle and Flow where music was the main thrust of the story.
The blues music is at the heart of Black Snake Moan, it courses through the movie much like bluegrass ran through the Coen brothers? O Brother Where Art Though. The music is also very nice to hear, Samuel L. Jackson reportedly spent six hours a day for half a year practicing his songs for the movie, and it shows. Jackson doesn?t have much of a singing voice, but he emotes in classic blues fashion, on screen he looks more like a veteran musician then a Hollywood poser. Of particular worth to fans of Jackson?s Jules Winfield persona will be his sizzling take on the blues standard ?Stagger Lee? the scene where this song is performed is like all of Jackson?s riotous fury from Pulp Fiction put into song. The music is not revolutionary and when heard on a CD it may not be as exiting, but the way it?s played on screen it is electrifying. Sound editing and mixing may be awards laughed at when the average person watches the Oscars, but here both really enhance the story greatly.
There?s more to Jackson in Black Snake Moan then mere singing, this is the first time in a since Changing Lanes that I?ve seen Jackson do more then play a variation on Jules Winfield. Here Jackson plays a three dimensional character with a real arc and multiple sides to his personality. Lazarus certainly has ?the blues? since ?his baby? left him, but he also has a certain inner turmoil and a bit of wrath that emerges at times. Jackson also manages to really act in his musical performances, much the way Jennifer Hudson did in her Oscar wining role in Dreamgirls. Ricci is also giving a bold and interesting performance in a difficult role, she has to be a sexy seductress and yet also a troubled, vulnerable and sympathetic young woman. Justin Timberlake is clearly the weakest of the three, in all fairness, his performance isn?t really bad per se, in fact it?s pretty good, but not good enough for the average viewer to overcome the baggage of having the leader of the most annoying boy band since New Kids on the Block featured on screen in a movie about quality music. Timberlake has a long way to go before he can shake off the stigma of his music career the way Mark(y Mark) Wahlberg has.
The movie is not perfect, an unnecessary romantic sub-plot between Lazarus and a choir member named Angela played by S. Epatha Merkerson (of TV?s Law & Order) adds a lair of formula to an otherwise highly original film. Also unnecessary is the addition of an over stereotypical redneck villain character who disappears in the third act and detracts from the film?s otherwise non judgmental take on its characters.
For the most part Black Snake Moan is a blast, it features a highly original premise, great performances, good writing and great music. Craig Brewster has proven that he is more then a mere one hit wonder, he is a promising young director who can make entertaining yet thoughtful films.

The Exorcist II, Jaws 2, Blair Witch 2? Anyone else see a pattern here? Horror sequels have a terrible track record. Every time a new and interesting horror movie comes out it is usually followed by a lame, uninspired, cash-in sequel. The few horror sequels that manage to work, like Dawn of the Dead and Aliens, only manage to work because they abandon their horror elements. 28 Weeks Later, sequel to the very well received 28 Days Later, would appear to fit right in with this trend. Between the track record of horror sequels and the fact that none of the original film?s cast or crew are involved; it would be very reasonable to assume that 28 Weeks Later would be a disaster. Amazingly, these assumptions are unfounded, 28 Weeks Later is one of the least disappointing sequels in recent memory.
As I?ve established, a sequel to 28 Days Later seemed like a terrible idea, perhaps that?s why the sequel managed to work. Most movies made today are already sold as a possible start to franchise, often leading to quickie follow ups the next year like The Hills Have Eyes 2. 28 Days Later however seemed like a very cohesive movie that ended in a way that seems to deliberately paint the series into a corner to prevent a sequel. Because the sequel wasn?t a no-brainer it has been a full five years since the original hit theaters. In that five years the people behind the sequel have had time to come up with a real, serious, follow-up that is worthy of its name.
It?s been (you guessed it) 28 weeks since a plague swept over the world creating waves of rage infected humans (essentially fast zombies) in a typical zombie movie fashion. Weeks takes a page from the Romero school of zombie-movie sequels. It ignores all of the characters from the original film and depicts the plague from another unrelated group of survivors. It appears that all the infected people from the original infestation have died off (no ore brains to eat). NATO forces have moved in to reconstruct London. The center area of London has been declared a ?green-zone? that is free of disease. Don (Robert Carlyle) has lost his wife during the plague. He now runs a building in the green zone and has access to a number of other areas in the green zone. Don has pulled some strings to have his children brought in despite some objections to allowing children into the area. I?ll avoid giving away further details, but it goes without saying that the disease isn?t quite gone yet, if it was this wouldn?t be much of a horror movie.
Like its predecessor, 28 Weeks Later is about more then frights and chills. Days had a serious message about human behavior and the way men react to dire situations. Weeks also comments on human behavior in tense situations, but from a more overtly political angle. The mismanaged chaos of the Iraq war and Hurricane Katrina are obvious in the bleak apocalypse displayed here. When the trouble starts the NATO reacts with more force then is really necessary, they become just as dangerous if not more dangerous to civilians then the rage infected zombies. The soldiers however are not bloodthirsty zealots, they?re conflicted people doing the best they can in a mismanaged and chaotic situation.
The director?s chair has been passed from the highly regarded British director Danny Boyle to the less well known Spanish director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo. The movie is no sellout however. The camera work is as grainy and shaky as ever here. The ?shaky-cam? is one of the many visual tricks that are being experimented with recently. Horror is one of the genres that seems to benefit greatly from the style. Action movies don?t benefit from the style because its disorienting, but horror movies do benefit from the disorientation, nothing?s quite as scary as not understanding the situation you?re in and having nowhere to run.
The movie does have some problematic moments. There?s an awkward helicopter scene that unfortunate mirrors a scene played for laughs in the Robert Rodriguez segment of the recent Grindhouse. The army?s security in some key moments is also suspiciously weak, this could simply be a symptom of the mismanagement that is displayed elsewhere, but a scene explaining this would have been helpful. One must also wonder why there are NATO forces available to rebuild London when it was suggested in the first film that the rest of the world was in just as much trouble as merry old England. Additionally the movie is a little gorier then it really needs to be at times especially one stomach churning scene involving an eye gouge.
Overall though 28 Weeks Later avoids the trend of crappy horror sequels, it works both as political allegory and as a horror movie. It will have you on the edge of your seat from the claustrophobic opening, to the chaotic rage outbreak, to the Blair Witch-esque finale, to the chilling final shot.

Like many people, I found myself digging Anime in the late 90s. This unique form of mostly adult oriented animation from Japan was like something I hadn?t seen before. However, anime has recently gone on the back burner for me and many others, and for mostly good reason. Unlike other types of foreign film, distributors tended not to filter what anime content found its way stateside. Essentially, every anime program that specialty distributors could get their hands on found their way onto store shelves, and as such it became increasingly hard to separate the cream from the milk. Of course some quality anime programs, like the works of Hayao Miyazaki, were able to find an audience; but for the most part anime programs tend to look like a whole lot of the same. Luckily other solid anime works do tend to emerge, and Paprika is one such quality work.
Paprika?s title comes not from that delicious spice, but from the name of one of the characters. The film?s sci-fi story is set in a future in which there is a new invention called a DC Mini exists. This invention allows people to view other people?s dreams to explore their sub conscious thoughts. Before the invention is ready for mass production, one is stolen and used to enter people?s dreams without their permission. At the center of it all seems to be an elucive dream figure going by the name Paprika.
That plot may sound complicated, but in reality the film?s plot is significantly more confusing and impenetrable than that highly simplified summery would have you believe. However, this confusion is rarely frustrating, after a little while I found myself deciding to just sit back and enjoy the ride. Furthermore, I got the general idea that this story would be able to stand up to further study if it were watched by someone more inclined to fully comprehend it than I was.
Part of why I eventually abandoned the film?s story line was that I was too intrigued by the film?s visual style to focus my attention on the complicated storyline. Technically, the animation here is nothing special. The movement here isn?t nearly as fluid as it is in something like Spirited Away, and computer generated elements are added in a rather awkward fashion. What?s really appealing about the animation here is its artistic design. There are some really cool images and moments throughout the film. The film allows characters to enter dreams, and this setting gives Satoshi Kon a seemingly limitless environment to bring creative elements to the screen.
Because of the dream sequences, many would compare this to the work of David Lynch. However, I think it has more in common with the work of David Cronenberg. The film has a very Cronenbergian view of sexuality; there are sexual images here that don?t necessarily show sex. For example there is one part where a man feels up a woman in a dream and his hand seems to sink into the flesh of her breast. The film also has a few moments that could be called body horror, like when the side of one character?s body transforms into some kind of tentacles. The movie doesn?t dwell on this sort of material, but it is their and its one of the film?s most compelling aspects.
It?s a shame that quality anime like this doesn?t really get the kind of recognition it deserves, or a wide theatrical release. This is a very creative, very interesting movie, definitely worth a look for adventurous film goers.

Oh how the mighty have fallen. The western genre used to be among the most popular genres; Hollywood would release dozens of westerns a year during the 30?s, 40?s, and 50?s. But times have changed dramatically. Since the year 2000 Hollywood has only put out three large budget westerns, an average of less than one every two years. Two of these three are the recent remake of The Alamo and the Jackie Chan martial arts comedy Shanghi Noon. The only straightforward western Hollywood put out in the last decade was the underappreciated Kevin Costner film Open Range.

Audiences loved westerns all throughout the first half of the century. ?Gunsmoke? was the most popular show on television, dime western novels were a staple of not so literary bookstores, and film audiences were flocking to see the latest cinematic representations of the frontier. But this all ended some time in the late sixties. Some say that youth counter-culture avoided westerns because they represented the establishment. I think however the genre declined because of simple market saturation. People could only watch the shootout at the O.K. Corral so many times (to date there have been eight representations of that famous gunfight on film).

That?s not to say there aren?t occasionally westerns, in fact there have been quite a few since 1970, but they?re no longer a major genre, instead there?s probably about one a year or so. But this isn?t entirely a bad thing. The fact that there are only one or two westerns a year lets each one of them be an event of sorts. I?ve never seen the original 1957 film 3:10 to Yuma simply because it looks no different than any of the other 10-20 westerns that came out that year. The film is all but forgotten today simply because it got lost in the shuffle of nearly identical westerns. The new remake of 3:10 to Yuma starring Russell Crowe and Christian Bale, however, comes out in an era where the genre feels special.

Christian Bale plays Dan Evans, a down on his luck rancher who?s family is heavy in debt. By a turn of chance Evans witnesses a robbery on an armored carriage committed by Ben Wade (Russell Crowe). Wade and his posse return to town, his second in command Charlie Prince (Ben Foster) reports the robbery in order to distract the local law enforcement. The local police ride out to the scene of the crime where they find Evans aiding the sole survivor of the carriage robbery, Byron McElroy (Peter Fonda). They return to town where, who waited around too long, is captured. The Pinkertons decide to escort Wade to the town of Convention where they?ll put him on the 3:10 train to Yuma. Because the Pinkertons are short handed Evans, who is a civil war veteran, volunteers to ride with them for two hundred dollars.

Many modern westerns do everything they can to subvert the genre. This has lead to some great movies like Unforgiven, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, and last year?s excellent The Proposition. 3:10 to Yuma ignores this concept entirely. This is a traditional western told in a very simple way. The story is nothing new, on paper it sounds like every other western ever made. The thing that sets this film ahead of other similar movies is simply an excellent execution.

The screenplay is quite good. As I said, the story is hardly revolutionary, but the this simple and somewhat clichéd story is very well told. The dialogue really sparkles, it sounds real but stylish at the same time. The characters are well rounded and three dimensional. Dan Evans has a very noble code of honor, but he?s no Dudley-Do-Right either, he is working for money after all. Evans also isn?t some kind of perfect gun fighting adventurer either. Ben Wade is even more interesting. He?s a violent criminal who?s willing to kill anyone who gets in his way, but one gets the feeling he doesn?t particularly like this about himself. He seems like a nice guy, he doesn?t act evil at all, but he does evil things anyway. The script is full of surprises, whenever you think something predictable is being set up it ends up being the opposite. The film doesn?t glorify the old west, it doesn?t turn away from many of the things that made the old west, not so great, but it never allows the setting to overwhelm the story itself.

What really puts this movie over the top is the acting. Russell Crowe and Christian Bale are undeniably two of the greatest actors of their generation, and pairing them made this film particularly exciting. The pairing seems brilliant, but could have been troublesome as well, pairing two method actors like these could have easily lead to lots of yelling and scenery chewing, but the two actors restrain themselves brilliantly and give two solid performances. Crowe is an actor who seems to have been born to be in westerns, he?s one of the best tough guys working, almost a modern day John Wayne except with a much wider range. Crowe was in one western before this, Sam Raimi?s strange The Quick and the Dead, which was something of a missed opportunity for Crowe. Here however Crowe lives up to his western badass potential.

Christian Bale is the one who has a bigger challenge in the movie. He?s not the kind of brawler you?d naturally expect in a western the way Crowe is. It was essential that Bale worked here; if Russell Crowe?s villain had overshadowed Bale?s hero the film would have been in trouble. Fortunately Bale rose to the occasion. He plays a down to earth and believable farmer and gives the character life.

Both of the stars give great performances that help the movie immensely, but I wouldn?t go so far as to say either give performances for the ages. This isn?t the kind of acting you hand out Oscars for or put in top ten lists. This is great American movie star tough guy acting in the tradition of John Wayne and Lee Marvin, but done with modern sensibilities.

Crowe and Bale are not, however, the only actors in the movie. There are many good performances to be found throughout the movie. Ben Foster very nearly steals the show as the vicious second in command of Wade?s gang, Charlie Prince. Foster, whose career has floated well under my radar before now, makes himself known here with a vengeance. Peter Fonda also has a small, but important role here. His performance isn?t particularly outstanding, but he holds his own around all the talent here and has a great dialogue exchange with Russell Crowe. Logan Lerman plays Evan?s teenage son William, a role could have been problematic, but he makes it work.

No one will ever confuse director James Mangold of being a great auteur, but when he?s given good material he consistently puts out very good movies. He?s probably most famous for his Johnny Cash biopic Walk the Line, but he also made the thriller Cop Land and the horror/mystery Identity. The film is shot in a traditional but effective way that doesn?t draw attention to itself. The violence is fast and well choreographed, this isn?t an action movie per se, but when the bullets start flying the film is just as exiting as anything Hollywood tends to put out.

The film has really nice cinematography and excellent sound effects editing. I?ve said before that this film is very traditionally made, this is not to say that this is some kind of nostalgia work that is actively trying to look like a film from the 50?s, the film manages to feel like what it is, an old film made in contemporary times.

3:10 for Yuma is a great yarn. It?s the best (and only) traditional western since Open Range, and on par with the westerns of the genre?s golden age. Anyone looking for a great flick for adults should check it out.

The animated drama that made a big splash last year. I probably saw the trailer for this thing twenty times in theaters last year, and I?d always meant to see the film, but I never got around to it. I love it when animation is used for non-children?s-films, and it?s definitely well used here. The film is mostly in Black and White traditional animation, and follows the life of a young woman growing up in Iran through a revolution and a war as well as her experiences in Vienna just as she?s entering adolescence. The central character has a lot of attitude and occasionally she feels like a cartoon Iranian version of Juno, I really could have done without the montage to the tune of Eye of the Tiger. Fortunately, most of this is contained to a few isolated scenes, the rest of it is pretty damn interesting.

It?s good to be a gangster these days, in movies anyway. The crime films have become a real staple of most peoples ?best movies? lists. There is a certain sort list of crime movies that seem universally loved, especially among male audiences. Of course The Godfather is on this list, so are Scorsese?s crime films like Goodfellas and Casino. A bit further down the list one comes across titles like Scarface and Heat. Last year we were treated to a new entry in this elite club of crime films, Scorsese?s Oscar winning triumph The Departed. Now, Ridley Scott is trying to enter this elite group of filmmakers with his sprawling, ambitious new film American Gangster.
The film tells the true story of two people?s lives in 1970s New York; the first is Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington), a major drug trafficker operating out of Harlem. The other is Ritchie Roberts (Russell Crowe), a police officer tracking his operation. Lucas was formerly the protégé of a major Harlem crime boss. When this boss dies Lucas decides to create an empire of his own. Unlike his mentor, who was basically a middleman bringing the Mafia?s product into Harlem; Lucas is interested in importing the product himself. Lucas achieves this by exploiting the chaos in Vietnam and bribing soldiers to import extremely pure ?blue magic? heroin into the United States. As Lucas rises to power he buys his mother (Ruby Dee) a mansion and bring his brothers Huey (Chiwetel Ejiofor), Turner (Common), Melvin (Warner Miller), Terrence (Albert Jones), Dexter (J. Kyle Manzay), and Stevie (T.I.) into the business.
On the other side of the law is Ritchie Roberts who is so by the book in his investigation methods that he turned in a million dollars in cash that he found in a bookie?s trunk. The NYPD at this time was so completely corrupt that this action actually makes Roberts and his partner Javier J. Rivera (John Ortiz) outcasts within the police force. Roberts eventually accepts a position at the lead of a federal narcotics task forces. Roberts and his team, Freddie Spearman (John Hawkes), Moses Jones (RZA), Alphonse Abruzzo (Yul Vazquez), discover Lucas? operation and begin to track him down despite the interference of the corrupt NYPD who become an enemy of both sides headed by Detective Trupo (Josh Brolin).
American Gangster is a movie that sounded wonderful on paper. It had two major Oscar winning actors heading its cast, a master director behind the camera, it was in a genre that produces a lot of cool movies, and its trailer accompanied by Jay-Z? excellent ?Heart of the City?, looked thoroughly awesome. Unfortunately American Gangster is not the masterpiece I was hoping for, but it is quite good.
Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe both give great performances, but not ones that jump out at you. This has its benefits, if they weren?t careful such casting could have lead to a lot of yelling and scenery chewing, but those looking for Oscar caliber performances could be a bit disappointed. Interestingly both actors seem to be working a bit against type. Washington is playing a violent criminal, something he?s done before, but it?s still a stretch from his usually likable persona. His work here is not as good as his work in Training Day although he is given fewer scenes to really show off with. Crowe is also against type, he?s made quite a name of himself playing bad-ass masculine characters. Here he?s really playing a nicer, slightly more down to earth figure. This really more closely resembles his work in A Beautiful Mind than it does his work in, say, 3:10 to Yuma.
The rest of the cast is also solid but unremarkable. The many actors playing Lucas? brothers are all good, they look right, they don?t distract the audience from the movie, and they do everything they?re supposed to do. None of them however, are really given the screen time to truly impress. The actors in Robert?s task force are in much the same situation, they are all solid, but don?t have the screen time to really show off. Ruby Dee, at the age of 83, gives a memorable performance as Lucas? mother. Cuba Gooding Jr. also has a small, but memorable role as a drug dealer who makes an enemy of Frank Lucas.
The problems in the movie generally seem rooted in the fact that it is trying to be two movies at the same time. One movie is a more realistic and less glorified version of Scarface showing the rise and fall of Frank Lucas as a major drug figure. The other is a French Connection type story about a burned out cop trying to make the score of a lifetime. Despite the movie?s two hour and forty minute runtime, there?s just too much to fit in, in sufficient detail. Many have compared it to Michael Mann?s excellent film Heat in that it shows a cop and a criminal?s stories as one goes after the other. The difference is that Heat took place over the course of about a week and stuck mainly to being a procedural, while American Gangster spans a decade and really tries to delve into these characters personal lives. In many ways the chance to study the characters seems to be at war with the plot. In the Lucas story the plot seems to win out, we know all about his smuggling operation, but almost nothing about any of his brothers. In the Roberts storyline, the characterization seems to win out and we learn more about Roberts? troubled divorce than we do about his actual police investigation.
Despite its smaller scope, Heat also had a longer running time, two hours and forty minutes is just not enough time to get in everything this film needs to really work. There are a lot of impatient people out there who will say American Gangster is too long when it?s really too short. Ridley Scott has had a long track record of making massive cuts to the theatrical versions of his films, and then putting the true version out on DVD. Scott?s directors cut of Kingdom of Heaven for example, was a vast improvement over the theatrical cut. Perhaps Scott will release an extended cut eventually that will work, but in the ADD stricken environment today it is unlikely that something like that will ever be put into theaters. Perhaps a better medium for the story would be as a premium cable mini-series. As it stands, American Gangster is quite well paced, it definitely goes by fast.
In general there are a lot of things here that just feel sloppy. I noticed a boom mike go into frame in a key scene, and Rapper RZA clearly has a Wu-Tang Clan tattoo visible on his shoulder in one scene. Alone these are not worth bringing up, but I think they are symptomatic of a larger disease. The movie just feels like it was rushed, it lacks a certain attention to detail one expects from a director like Ridley Scott. The cinematography here is to dark, the actor?s faces are often obscured by shadows. The soundtrack is also disappointing; when you?re making a gangster movie one expects a great Scorsese-esque soundtrack, one also expects great music in movies about the 70?s like Boogie Nights, and one expects great music from films centered in Harlem, therefore one would expect a positively epic soundtrack from a 70s Harlem gangster movie. Unfortunately this epic soundtrack is not found here. The best song present, Across 110th Street by Bobby Womack, was already used by Quentin Tarentino in is crime film Jackie Brown (who in turned borrowed it from a Blaxploitation film).
I don?t want to sound like a hated this movie, or even that I disliked it. On the contrary it is a perfectly respectable movie with a lot of great moments in it. There is a great montage midway through the film showing Thanksgiving from the perspective of Roberts, then of Lucas? family, then of Lucas? enemies, and finally of the drug users Lucas sells to. The film also gets really good in the last forty minutes when the investigation really kicks in and the two figures finally meet. There are a lot of great scenes like this, but the movie as a whole just isn?t as profound as it should be.
Ridley Scott, maybe wasn?t the right person for this project after all. Most of Scott?s movies are fairly simple, often taking place over the course of a few days to a week. Rarely do his movies span a decade like this and really chronicle characters in depth. Scott makes a noble effort here, but doesn?t quite make it. The standards for movies in this genre are really high, and this just doesn?t quite stand up to the challenges. The movie is worth seeing, but at the end of the day, Scott just isn?t as good at this stuff as Martin Scorsese.

Stephen King may be the undisputed leader in the world of horror fiction. Even the best masters of horror cinema like Wes Craven and John Carpenter can?t claim to be remotely as iconic or consistently excellent as the best selling author is within the genre. Few authors have had as many feature films made about their work than King, nearly fifty feature length theatrical and made-for-tv movies have been made from his work. The adaptations of King?s work that Hollywood has been putting out are inconsistent to say the least: for every The Shining, The Green Mile, and or Misery there?s a bomb like Thinner, Maximum Overdrive, or The Mangler, and for every one of those there?s a middle of the road moderate success like Secret Window, Hearts in Atlantis, and Apt Pupil.
Hollywood loves adapting King?s work so much that they?ve pretty much run out of novels to adapt. The new trend in making King works into movies is to adapt his short novellas and short stories into feature length movies. Interestingly these story adaptations generally haven?t been any more or less consistently successful than the adaptations of the novels. It?s interesting how different an adaptation of a short story can be than of a novel, rather than cutting down a story one must build up and expand upon the initial framework provided by the written work. Such movies are less reliant on King?s talent and more reliant of the talent of the screenwriter with the unenviable task of out King-ing King. The new Stephen King adaptation 1408 was made by film-makers who were up to that challenge.
The film revolves Mike Enslin (John Cusack), a writer of psudo-non-ficion books about the nights he spends in places that are supposedly haunted. Unbeknownst to his readers the nights Enslin spends in these locations are quite uneventful. Enslin is in fact a closet-skeptic, he advises one enthusiastic fan that his best place in America to spot a ghost is in the Haunted Mansion in Orlando, Florida. Enslin, an alcoholic writer who recently lost a daughter to an unspecified disease, is currently working on a book about haunted hotel rooms when he hears about the perfect haunted place to put in the last chapter of his book: Room 1408 at the Dolphin Hotel in New York where 56 people had supposedly been killed by an evil force that resides in the room. Upon his arrival at the Dolphin, Enslin is greeted by the hotel?s manager Mr. Orlin (Samuel L. Jackson) who begs Enslin not to go into the room because ?no one has lasted more than an hour in 1408.? Despite Mr. Orlin?s warnings, Enslin refuses to be turned away. Orlin finally gives in and lets Enslin into the room, but it becomes readily apparent that there really is something very wrong with room 1408.
1408 was directed by Mikael Håfström, an unproven Swedish director whose English language debut, Derailed, opened to mostly negative reviews. Håfström proves here that, when given better material, he does have a promising career. But it is with the actors, or rather actor that the real credit is due. Once Enslin is in the room the film basicly turns into a one man show with John Cusack holding the only major speaking role. As such, much of the movie lives or dies by the quality of Cusacks acting. Cusack meets this challenge with a tour-de-force performance that single-handedly makes the movie worth seeing. Samuel L. Jackson is also very fun in his brief, but memorable, role.
King?s short story was one of the best in his collection Everything?s Eventual. The story was largely a tribute to the early twentieth century horror writer H.P. Lovecraft. The Enslin in the book resembled the one here, but this version of the character has been expanded. The writing team cleverly expands Enslin to be more like a typical King character, he?s an alcoholic writer who?s lost a child. Enslin is a much better developed character than the victims to be in most horror movies. One really begins to feel they know him well by the end of the movie.
The film isn?t the scariest or most tense thing you?ll ever see, but it does have a number of good jump scenes. Many of the tricks the room uses to torture Enslin are really interesting, most memorably a McCabe twist on Harpo Marx?s mirror sketch. The real terror here is psychological, one really gets into Enslin?s head and feels for him during the maddening emotional rape the room is trying to drive him to suicide with. Also chilling is the history of the room which Orlin describes to Enslin while trying to persuade him not to stay in the room.
The movie is not perfect. The order in which Enslin tries to escape is a bit loopy, Enslin tries to escape through the vents only after he tries climbing out the window to the next room. There?s also twist toward the end that is interesting but ultimately unnecessary. This twist breaks the claustrophobic atmosphere, and it takes the movie a while to recover, which it does just in time before the emotional climax. The ending was also a little bit too easy.
1408 may not be ?extreme? enough for the new generation of horror fans. But it is sometimes refreshing in this era of torture porn to see just how effective rattling chains in a haunted house (or hotel room) can be.

Spy movies come in many breeds; some are action packed thrillers featuring tuxedo clad agents with complex gadgets. Some feature cloaks, daggers, double crosses and intrigue. Breach is actually quite unique from these types of fictional spy thrillers in its own modest way. In fact it more closely resembles the business intrigue of director Billy Ray?s previous film, 2003?s above average Shattered Glass.
The film tells the true story of Eric O'Neill (Ryan Phillippe), a young FBI employee in the computer intelligence division. O?Neill hopes to be promoted to agent, but first he must take a special assignment to be an assistant to Robert Hanssen (Chris Cooper), a veteran agent who the FBI says is under suspicion of being a sexual deviant. O?Neill is asked to spy on Hanssen and dig up as much dirt as he can on Hanssen before his activities are discovered and cause embarrassment for the bureau. To O?Neill?s surprise, Hanssen (who is pushing sixty) seems like a squeaky clean individual; a devout catholic who goes to church daily, doesn?t drink, and doesn?t cheat on his wife; hardly the behavior of a deviant. When he confronts the agent who gave him the assignment (Laura Linney) he learns that Robert Hanssen?s corruption goes much deeper than sexual deviance.
Chris Cooper is most definitely the main attraction here, Cooper (who won an Oscar for his supporting performance in Spike Jonzes Adaptation) is a great actor who doesn?t get many chances to really carry movies and truly develop a character. Cooper is terrific here in what may be the best performance I?ve seen all year. Ryan Philleppe is solid but unremarkable, he doesn?t hurt the film but he seems pretty lightweight compared to Cooper?s Oscar worthy acting. Cooper is interestingly in one of those supporting performances that feel like leads. Like 2006?s The Last King of Scottland, Breach looks at a complicated figure from the perspective of a simple character.
Perhaps part of why this true story works it that it is internal and took place in a time of peace and thus wasn?t classified beyond comprehension. Unlike last year?s The Good Sheppard which felt like nothing more than elaborate guesswork about decades worth of deeply classified spycraft, Breach feels like a very accurate representation of the events surrounding Robert Hanssen. The film is a dramatized movie, it never feels like a recreation, but it also never feels like total fiction. This believability helps keep Breach down to Earth, which is a very good thing. The film never stoops to sensationalism; in fact it doesn?t even try to be a thriller. This is no James Bond movie, nor is it a Ludlum, Clancy, or le Carré movie for that matter. Breach isn?t even a thriller for that matter; the film is really a dramatic character study that happens to be set in the intelligence community.
The fact that the film stays grounded is what prevents it from going off the tracks, but its also what keeps the film from flirting with greatness. The film never risks anything and pulls many of its punches. Breach will never be a classic but its well worth seeing.

Robert Zemeckis has become a wildcard in the Cinema world. When Zemeckis rose to fame in the mid 80s with films like Back to the Future and Who Framed Roger Rabbit he seemed a little bit like a Steven Spielberg imitator, albeit a very successful one. During the 90s he began to feel like an Oscar chaser with films like Forrest Gump and Cast Away. Then, in a completely unexpected twist, he began to make motion-capture based computer animation films. His films The Polar Express and Monster House were both met with mixed reviews by critics unsure how to react to this medium which some felt took a walk though the uncanny valley. While The Polar Express was aimed at a very young audience and Monster House was aimed at slightly older children, Zemeckis? new animated film, Beowulf is aimed at a teenage through adult audience, an almost unheard of demographic for a mainstream animated film.
Based on the 8th century epic poem of the same name, the film revolves around the title character, Beowulf (voiced by Ray Winstone). Beowulf has ventured to a mead hall called Heorot, which has recently been attacked by a large humanoid monster called Grendel (Crispin Glover). King Hrothgar (Anthony Hopkins) has ordered an end to all ?merry-making? in Heorot because it incurs the wrath of this monster because of his sensitive hearing. Beowulf, his right hand man Wiglaf (Brendan Gleeson), and his small squad of warriors face Grendel, but must ultimately face is mother (Angelina Jolie), a seductress water demon.
Beowulf is an epic poem I never had the ?privilege? of reading. Throughout my education I took Woody Allen?s advice not to ?take any course where they make you read Beowulf.? The main reason I?ve avoided reading the book is simply that I?ve had bad experiences trying to read archaic epic poetry; it?s a style of writing that I find to simply be annoying to read. Despite this reluctance to read the text, I?ve always been curious about the story of the poem. Every description I?ve heard basically makes it sound like a series of fights against three different monsters. This is not the kind of story that fits the usual mould of Hollywood films, thus a creative adaptation was essential to the success or failure of the film.
As I?ve never read the original text, I can?t testify as to its accuracy, I can say that I suspect the movie has been heavily modified. The nature of this modification by screenwriters Neil Gaiman and Roger Avery, however seems very clever. Instead of a straight up adaptation of the events of the poem, the film appears to claim to be the ?true story? behind the poem. The writing of ?the song of Beowulf? is referenced in the film, but the events in the song are based on the hero?s propaganda rather than the true story of his deeds. In fact the Beowulf in the film is very different from the one-dimensional hero from the poem. This Beowulf is a brash and arrogant fighter who becomes haunted in his old age by a selfish lie he told in his youth. ?The song of Beowulf is in fact the result of the young Beowulf?s bragging as opposed to an ?accurate? portrayal. This dichotomy of heroic truth as told through propaganda is not unlike a similar technique used in the film 300 earlier this year.
Though the tricks used to adapt the film are interesting, this is not a script without its share of problems. The film wants to have its cake and eat it too when it comes to this propaganda angle. The film wants to make Beowulf into a bragging jerk, yet he is an extremely adept warrior in the film despite his exaggerations. The film never firmly decides whether or not Beowulf lives up to his hype or not, and this undermines the film?s theme.
Most of the characters except for Beowulf himself and the Grendel family are two dimensional figures, especially the female characters. Queen Wealtheow (Robin Wright Penn) and Beowulf?s mistress Ursula (Alison Lohman) are both superficial figures that serve almost no purpose other than to act as damsels in distress during the film?s finale.
The film?s dialogue is enjoyable, but not overly noteworthy. Those hoping for the poetic text of the original poem will be disappointed, although they will find it more interesting than what can be heard from the mouths of average Hollywood characters. As far as faux-Shakespearian dialogue goes, I?d say this ranks somewhere between Braveheart (bad) and Gladiator (good). This is of course set in Viking-era Scandinavia, and as such the dialogue appropriately comes from a more blue-collar place than something set in upper class Elizabethan England. Especially enjoyable are the bawdy mead-hall drinking songs sung by the drunken soldiers.
The enjoyable elements from Beowulf ultimately come from its execution rather than its story. The entire film consists of computer generated images based on motion capture from real people. 3D prints of the film are being distributed into 638 conventional theaters and 104 IMAX screens. I however, caught the film on a conventional 2D movie screen. I would have liked to see the film in its intended 3D, but every theater showing it like this were in distant suburbs of my city, and thus were inconvenient to get to. Add to this increased admission price of an IMAX screening and it was clear that a 2D screening would be far more convenient for me. Additionally, I believe watching the film this way allowed me to more clearly focus on the film?s story than the spectacle. During an early scene a horseman runs up to the camera with a spear pointing directly forward. This appeared to be a blatant visual intended to be impressive in 3D. Fortunately the rest of the film seemed to avoid these sorts of three dimensional stunts. Throughout the film tends to use conventional ?camera angle? and editing in its animation.
Of greater interest than the film?s special distribution are the film?s motion capture graphics. Going into the film I had hoped I would be the first film to really feel photo-realistic. Unfortunately the animation technology has not quite reached that level, but it is getting more and more impressive. The animations progress however is evolutionary rather than revolutionary.
Many people have claimed that motion capture animation of this sort has fallen into what?s called the ?uncanny valley.? That when animation tries to replicate humans with this level of realism, people will invariably start to focus on what looks unreal about the characters rather than what does look real. As such, the characters in Zemeckis? last two motion capture films were heavily criticized for having lifeless eyes and less than perfect facial motions. I however do not buy into the theory of the ?uncanny valley.? If one goes into the film demanding photorealism, they will be disappointed. I however was willing to accept the animation for what it was rather than what it wasn?t. After I got used to the film?s animation I was able to get past its shortcomings I was able to go with the film?s style.
The film is, if nothing else, a very good action movie. The film features four major action scenes. The best of these is probably a dazzling one on one aerial fight between Beowulf and a humongous winged dragon. Also solid are the two absolutely brutal mead-hall fights against Grendel. Grendel, a frightening hulk of a monster, fights with his bare hands and absolutely annihilates all the people that stand in his way. Also worth noting is an over the top flashback to a fight between Beowulf and three large sea serpents which ends with Beowulf getting some action from a topless mermaid.
It is worth noting that the film has been significantly edited in order to receive a PG-13 rating. The film does not live up to the gory promise of its red-band trailer. The bloody slaughter of the Grendel fights have been darkened significantly, the blood is a shade of black rather than bright red. Also edited has been a significant amount of nudity. Angelina Jolie, who appears nude, has been covered by Goldfinger style paint and the aforementioned topless mermaid is inexplicably has no nipples. Also a casualty of censorship is a bizarre scene where Beowulf fights Grendel? naked. Throughout the scene Beowulf?s naughty parts are covered by various conveniently placed objects Austin Powers style. Beowulf?s reasons for going into this fight nude were important, it showed his youthful recklessness, but this censorship turns this into a bad physical comedy scene. I?m not saying I have any particular desire to see Beowulf?s penis, but if they were going to have a scene like this they should have either gone all out or just given Beowulf some pants.
Also interesting is the acting in the movie, especially that of Ray Winstone. I?d be lying if I said that I fully understood how much of the characters physical movement could be attributed to the actors behind the graphics, but I do know that the voice acting here is first rate. Ray Winstone?s voice is a perfect choice for the role of Beowulf, his voice has the perfect mix of strength and masculinity. Anthony Hopkins is a great addition to the film, and John Malkovich also has a nice hammy role. Angelina Jolie is also a great choice, her voice is perfect for seduction. The less famous cast members are also top of the line voice talents. The voice of Crispin Glover however, is somewhat wasted on a raging monster. Grendel only speaks occasionally and when he does it sounds more like garbled gibberish than talented acting, this is of course the way the character perhaps should be portrayed, but if you?re looking for a recognizable Glover you may be disappointed.
In the end, Beowulf is a very cool movie. ?Cool? is probably the word I?m most comfortable using to describe the film. It?s not excellent, or even great. If you?re looking for a faithful adaptation of the poem, or for photorealistic animation, you?ll probably be disappointed. However, if what you?re looking for is a badass action adventure you?ll definitely be satisfied.

Heist films like this have a pretty well established formula, a group of thieves plan an elaborate robbery then execute the plan while improvising solutions to everything that goes wrong. Ocean?s Eleven utilized this formula masterfully, Ocean?s Twelve tried to depart from the formula and it didn?t work, now Ocean?s Thirteen returns to this formula and delivers again. Gore Verbinski should start taking notes, this is how empty entertainment should be. Ocean?s Thirteen is the worthy sequel that Ocean?s Twelve wasn?t.
Ocean?s Thirteen is actually better than Ocean?s Eleven in that the cast by now has a more developed chemistry. The whole gang is back; George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Elliott Gould, Don Cheadle, Bernie Mac, Casey Affleck, Scott Caan, Shaobo Qin, Carl Reiner, and Eddie Jemison are all back reprising their roles from the original Oceans Eleven. Andy Garcia, the victim of the first film?s heist, is also back helping Ocean?s gang for his own reason. Eddie Izzard is also back reprising his role from Ocean?s Twelve. The one major star from the original films that has declined to return is Julia Roberts, her loss. New to the cast is Al Pacino, who has stepped into Andy Garcia?s shoes as the violent casino owner who will soon be robbed. Also new is Ellen Barkin, who plays his assistant.
Pacino plays Willie Bank, an old school casino owner with possible ties to the mafia. Bank is opening a new top of the line casino on the Las Vegas strip called The Bank. To open this casino Bank got financing from Reuben Tishkoff (Elliott Gould) who was part of the original Ocean?s eleven. Bank then rips Reuben off and drives him to have a near fatal stroke. Ocean?s gang reassembles and decides to come up with a plan for revenge. Their plan is to sabotage the opening day festivities of Bank?s new casino; they make an important critic?s stay a living hell, they rig the games to all pay off at once, and they plan to steal a number of diamonds from Bank?s vault (no pun intended).
The one thing Ocean?s Twelve improved on over Oceans Eleven is the chemistry between the cast members. The gang of thieves had gone from being unrelated strangers to being a band of friends who work together to accomplish jobs; the cast interacted a lot better the lines really flowed off the script. The new film in the franchise adds this improved chemistry to a superior script more worthy of the improved cast interactions. You don?t really have to have seen Ocean?s Twelve to enjoy Ocean?s Thirteen, although you will need a familiarity with Eleven.
The scheme is as complicated as ever, but you don?t really need to take notes to understand it, like the works of Tarentino the storytelling is so good that the fact that what you?re watching is complicated seems incidental. Also like its predecessors, the heist isn?t overly believable, at times your ability to suspend disbelief will be stretched to its limits. However if you could get past the holographic Fabergé egg in Ocean?s Twelve you should be fine here.
Also interesting is that now more then before Steven Soderbergh is reveling in retro. Thematically the film harkens back to retro Las Vegas. Characters discuss how much Sin City has changed. Bank?s new casino seems to be channeling old Las Vegas, Bank himself behaves like an old school casino owner, he?s willing to kill and maim anyone who tries to cross him, a trait that makes his inevitable defeat all the more sweet.
But it isn?t retro Vegas that rules here, its retro Hollywood. This movie could easily have been made in the mid sixties. It?s a film that celebrates celebrity, the film makes you appreciate what star power can accomplish. Also present are character actors like Don Cheadle who briefly steals the show while imitating a James Brown like Motorcycle stuntman.
The film is amazingly entertaining, there?s significantly more fun to be had here than in Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End a film with at least fifty times the special effects budget. One wonder if the fun had at Ocean?s Thirteen is the result of lowered expectations after a month of disappointing third installments. Previous movies this summer have done everything they could to entertain by simply throwing as much CGI on the screen as money could buy. Ocean?s Thirteen proves that the old school of Hollywood entertainment is alive and well.
Many are speculating as to whether this sequel will lead to an Ocean?s Fourteen. Many of the cast and crew have said this will be the last film in the franchise. However the ending is just as open for a sequel as the last two film?s, and that?s no a bad thing. I?d welcom a fourth film in the series sometime in the future. I?ve had a lot of fun with this band of thieves and I don?t think the series has really run out of steam.

They say the 70?s was the best decade for cinema, the decade where masses of people flocked to films which were major artistic achievements that made statements about society and were loved by critics and audiences alike. Some movies of the decade that usually come to mind are The Godfather, Taxi Driver, and A Clockwork Orange. In the world of Quentin Tarentino and Robert Rodriguez and likely many other more proletariat minds however the 70?s were more about movies like Vanishing Point, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, I Spit on Your Grave and other sleazy exploitation films of that decade that would play as double and triple features at low rent theaters called Grindhouses. It is this film going experience that inspired Tarentino and Rodriguez to work together to make their new film Grindhouse.
Grindhouse is a throwback to the double feature, consisting of two 85 minute feature films with similarly styled trailers to other non-existent grindhouse movies between the two. It begins with Robert Rodriguez?s Planet Terror, a zombie movie that goes above and beyond ?over the top.? In Planet Terror a typical zombie infestation is spreading through a rural Texas community. This zombie takeover is seen from the perspective of an eclectic group of individuals throughout the town that are immune to the spread of the zombie virus. Some of these heroes include a hard boiled fighter (Freddy Rodríguez) his ex-girlfriend, a go-go dancer with a heart of gold (Rose McGowan,) a doctor who treats her after she suffers an injury (Josh Brolin), his estranged wife (Marley Shelton,) and a sheriff trying to fight the zombies (Michael Biehn.) There are many other characters throughout this first film, their stories all initially seem unrelated, but as the film progresses they all meet up and form a posse of sorts.
The zombies in the movie have incredibly gory make-up, their faces are constantly bubbling up and bursting. Planet Terror is definitely the more violent of the two movies in Grindhouse, in fact it rarely goes five minutes without having a zombie or human killed in an incredibly graphic way. The film really doesn?t make all that much narrative sense, the characters are two dimensional, and almost everyone over acts. All this is of course done to re-create the sleazy aesthetic of the movies it?s recreating. The film, like its 70?s predecessors, is all about escapism and in fact it?s a blast. The film excellently manages to run by quickly and continues to provide interesting and quirky moments and images.
The second film is Quentin Tarentino?s Death Proof, is being billed as a slasher movie, but it?s actually more of a cross between car chase movies and Russ Meyer?s empowering sexploitation. The film deals with Stuntman Mike (Kurt Russell) a former stuntman who uses his heavily re-enforced ?death proof? stunt car to cause car accidents and murder young women he?s been stalking. The first half of this film deals with Mike?s dealings with a group of young friends that ends with a massive climactic car crash. The second half deals with Mike?s attempt to stalk another group of young women which ends in a massive care chase.
Death Proof is a much less violent film then Planet Terror, it is more relaxed and a little bit lighter. The film is probably more like what actual grindhouse movies would have been. The film fully employs Quentin Tarantino?s signature dialogue, which is probably its best aspect. Kurt Russell is awesome here as a horror heavy, it?s a shame we don?t see him in more movies. Stuntman Mike?s young victims also do everything they need to with their roles and appropriately act in a stylized way that is reminiscent of the leading ladies in the films this film is trying to emulate.
Grindhouse is trying as hard as it can to recreate the grindhouse experience. It isn?t trying to be a time capsule, the films take place in modern times and have significantly higher budgets then anything that would have been in a real grindhouse, but the film does have highly retro sensibilities. Like the films that played in 70?s grindhouses, the films here are filled with print flaws. The print flaws are oddly not distributed evenly, Death Proof has odd reel changes but mostly uses print flaws sparingly, while Planet Terror occasionally looks like it?s print has been repeatedly dragged through the street. The films go so far as to include missing reels, a practice that was never actually a common trait in grindhouses.
The film comes with an assortment of fake trailers, the best of them is the first one, the Robert Rodriguez directed Machete, is a take on Death Wish style revenge movies. This trailer most seems like it could make a full movie, and its plot is oddly similar to the recent Mark Wahlberg thriller Shooter. The Rob Zombie directed trailer, Werewolf Women of the SS, easily has the most inspired concept and title, it also has a hilarious cameo at the end, but it also looks less retro then many of the other trailers. On the opposite end of the spectrum is Eli Roth?s trailer Thanksgiving, a take on highly low budget rip-offs of John Carpenter?s Halloween. This trailer, more so than anything else in all of Grindhouse, looks like an actual artifact of the 70?s, it also has some of the sickest killings. Edgar Wright?s trailer is defiantly the least memorable, but it isn?t without its charms.
One of the interesting things about Grindhouses is that it clearly shows the strengths and weaknesses of the two directors. Tarentino is a genius of film dialogue and his movie excellently manages to build tension and make its subjects interesting. Rodriguez is not a well versed in dialogue and generally has to fall back on violence and gore to entertain. Planet Terror is the fastest and most audacious, but also more calculated and generally has less soul. Death Proof is ultimately a better movie, it more accurately recreates the movies that inspired it and is generally a more mature and more coherent work. Though I like Death Proof more, the difference in quality really is marginal, the movies really are just different sides of the dame coin.
Grindhouse is what it is, a genre celebration filled with homage and in jokes. It exists only because other movies exist for it to reference. One could argue that this is all any of Quentin Tarentino?s films have done; Tarentino?s other films however have much better developed characters and storylines and generally amount to much more. At the end of the day Grindhouse isn?t for everybody, but it is a very fun, often humorous movie. To call it bad for its hollowness and cheesiness is to miss the point and to call it some sort of brilliant masterpiece is just as wrong. It is simply a very fun work of kitsch that abandons pretensions in order to provide hours of escapism, which is exactly what people went into 70?s grindhouses to get.

Tim Burton?s grim adaptation of Sweeny Todd is probably one of the grimmest musicals ever produced by a major studio. The film could best be described as a cross between Chicago and Eastern Promises, a combination one doesn?t instantly expect to see. The film is based on a Stephen Sondheim musical that debuted on Broadway in 1979. I know very little about this or many other Broadway musicals, so this was my first experience with Sweeney Todd.
The opens as the title character (Johnny Depp) returns to London after a fifteen year exile in Australia. Todd, who was known as Benjamin Baker before his Exile, was a barber married to a woman named Lucy (Laura Michelle Kelly). This marriage had been cut short by a corrupt judge (Alan Rickman) who sent Baker away and kidnapped their daughter. After Baker returned he quickly found an old friend Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter) who informs him that since he departed his wife had killed herself and his daughter is still living with the judge who caused all this trouble. Todd vows to have his revenge, and to do it he plans to lure the judge to his barber shop where he plans to cut his throat. In the meantime Todd and Lovett decide to rejuvenate Lovett?s meat pie restaurant with a newly found source of free meat.
Johnny Depp?s ability to create characters seemed particularly apt with this project. The art on the Sweeny Todd playbill make this look like the part Depp was born to play. However I really wish Depp had stretched himself for the role a little more than he did. As it stands his Sweeney Todd character is little more than an extension of his Edward Scissorhands character. Depp has the same blank face on through most of the film, I would have liked a little more emotion from him; there is little of the rage her that one would expect from someone bent on revenge. Depp?s singing voice would probably not impress a Broadway musical vet, but it works for the movie. He joins a long tradition of male leads like Rex Harrington, James Cagney, and Yul Brennor who can?t really sing, but can fool the audience into thinking they can.
Helena Bonham Carter also looks like a perfect fit for the part of Mrs. Lovett, but she has been criticized for her singing voice much more harshly than Depp. I however do not share that sentiment, I thought Carter?s singing voice sounded fine, although she did sound a lot better when partnered with other singers than when she sang alone. Alan Rickman is always great as a villain and this is no exception, his musical role is not as extensive as either Depp or Carter, but he sings his one song pretty well.
Also present is Sasha Baron Cohen, who has a small role as a flamboyant con artist who has a barber duel with Sweeny Todd. Cohen is appropriately over the top here, but his performance is ultimately in support of a weak character. Cohen?s segments simply strike me as an attempt at humor that wasn?t very funny. The young assistant of Cohen?s character, Tobais (Ed Sanders), eventually take?s on a larger role in the film. Sanders? singing voice actually sounds better trained than a lot of the star?s, but it also didn?t really fit the scene?s as well; it sounded a lot more like it was recorded in a studio and dubbed in than it did with the other actors. The final addition to the cast is a young sailor named Anthony Hope (Jamie Campbell Bower), who seems like the romantic lead from a normal musical, he makes quite a contrast to the rest of these throat slashing freaks.
The film?s music is probably its most compelling element, I wasn?t sure what to expect from the songs here but I was pleasantly surprised. While the film?s orchestration was good but it seemed fairly typical of Broadway music, Sondheim?s lyrics on the other hand were extremely catchy. The film was full of catch, fast paced and well rhymed lyrical exchanges that were consistently fun to keep track of. The film?s story was really told through lyrics, this isn?t the type of musical where the songs are interruptions in the film?s narrative flow, but rather this is a musical where the story and its underlying mood are entrenched in the music. Unfortunately, I was consistently annoyed by the film?s sound mix which placed too much emphasis on orchestration and frequently made following the lyrics a chore. This wasn?t bad enough to kill the songs but it was a constant irritation.
Tim Burton?s design skills are in full swing here; this twisted vision of Victorian London is consistently fun to watch. The film mixes the city-scapes of Batman with the dark, gothic turn of the century revisionism of the under-rated Sleepy Hollow. This is a very dark film both in its tone and photography. The cinematography uses de-saturated colors throughout and goes to great lengths to contrast this throughout. One particular highlight of the design and photography on display here is a sequence where Mrs. Lovett fantasizes of an escape from this dreary world, but it?s clear that there?s no place for the chronically depressed Sweeney Todd in this fantasy world.
Juxtaposed with all the blacks and blues of the films normal color pallet is the extremely bright and jarring red bursts of blood during the murder scenes. Make no mistake; this is an extremely violent and somewhat depraved film. There are murder scenes here that would make Wes Craven blush. Not only are there violent murder scenes but there?s also a disgusting subplot about a business that learned to get raw materials from the Leatherface school of small business. None of this material would be overly shocking to the average horror veteran like me, but to a mainstream musical audience it may be very shocking. One wonders what the audience of this film is. Musical fans would be disgusted by the gore, and horror fans would be turned off by the music. The likely audience for this will probably be emo kids, which is unfortunate because this film does deserve better than to be lumped in with that retarded sub-culture.
While Stephen Sondheim?s music is the film?s major strength, his story is one of its biggest weaknesses. The film?s storyline really isn?t that different from any revenge film, and by the film?s anti-climactic finale I couldn?t help but ask myself ?what?s the point of all this?? The film tells us nothing we haven?t already heard about the nature of revenge and none of the characters are as complex as the story thinks they are. The film, despite its elaborate sets, is oddly stage bound. Most of the action takes place in Lovett?s hellish restaurant/barbershop and the film?s script seems to expect the evil judge to come to this crappy set rather than having Todd seek him out in the larger world of London that?s been set up.
Despite my reservations about the film?s ultimate storyline, I?m still going to hesitantly recommend the film because of the grade-A Burton atmosphere and visual styling. The story is fairly empty, but I enjoyed the film when I experienced it in the moment and there is some real brilliance in the music even if the songs are poorly mixed. This is definitely worth seeing for fans of Burton and/or Sondheim, just don?t expect the story to blow you away.
*** out of four

The immigrant experience is one of America?s defining features, and this is reflected throughout American cinema. From Vito Corleone?s arrival at Elis Island in The Godfather Part II to the Xuncax?s tragic plight in El Norte, the immigrant experience has been a great source of drama. However, the experience of immigrants is not always as dramatic as the above examples. Often the struggles of an immigrant family are struggles with their own cultural confusion rather than struggles against adversity. This type of identity crisis is particularly present in the children of immigrants, who must find a balance between their American identities and their cultural traditions. It is a story that is told quite often, and it appears again in the newest film from Mira Nair, called The Namesake.
The film examines the Gangulis, a upper middle class Indian family living in upstate New York. At the head of this family are Ashoke (Irfan Khan) and Ashima (Tabu), who left Calcutta for the New York in the early seventies and soon gave birth to their first son, who they decided to name Gogol (Kal Penn) after the Russian author Nikolai Gogol. Gogol, eventually decided to take the anglicized name Nick in order to better fit in with his American friends, a decision that hurt his father inside.
The Namesake is a story about people and their lives; it doesn?t follow a three act Hollywood structure. The first twenty minutes of the film are somewhat disorienting, basically the story of Ashoke and Ashima are compressed into this short span of time. At this point I began to worry the film had already lost me and I wasn?t sure I wanted to see the next hour and forty minutes. Than the films main storyline began, the story that focuses on Gogol. In many ways this is a less interesting storyline, but it is given the time it needs to play out. Many critics have suggested that the roles should have been reversed, that the parents should have been given more screen time than the son. This is understandable, but it is through Gogol that the story?s ultimate message derives, he?s the character with a substantial arc to explore.
Part of why the parent?s story is more compelling lies in the great performances Irfan Khan and Tabu deliver. These two actors have been making films in India for the last twenty years and have only recently began making English language films. Neither Khan or Tabu are much older than forty, both play older in the film and do it perfectly. Khan?s character is a man who has deep inner turmoil but avoids showing outward emotion, something his Americanized son doesn?t notice. As such Khan has a real tightrope to walk expressing emotions that the audience can pick up on but holding it back enough for Gogol to believably fail to notice. In lesser hands this wouldn?t work, but Khan pulls it off perfectly. Tabu has similar challenges and pulls it off just as well. Kal Penn however has a role that?s almost as challenging and doesn?t really come off as well. Penn is famous for playing Kumar in the stoner comedy Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, a film I have managed to avoid for the last three years. Penn is clearly trying his really hard to get this right and often comes real close to being very convincing. However, when compared to the great performances being delivered by Khan and Tabu he comes off as a real light weight.
The Namesake is not a perfect movie but it has a lot of heart. If you look at it for what it it?s a rewarding experience. The film really won me over by the end and I really found myself won over by the characters, even Gogol, by the end.

Dutch filmmaker Paul Verhoven is probably most famous for the infamous bomb Showgirls. Before that 1996 disaster Verhoven made a handful of Dutch films before breaking into Hollywood with a string of unique action films like Robocop and Total Recall. Verhoven?s Hollywood films became increasingly sexual throughout his career, culminating in the freeze-frame classic Basic Instinct and the aforementioned Showgirls. After that debacle Hollywood became increasingly unwilling to finance Verhoven?s wild De Palma-esque sexual thrillers. Verhoven was able to infuse some of his sensibilities into later films like Starship Troopers, but was largely unable to get financing for the project he wanted. For his latest project Verhoven has returned to the Netherlands for the first time in over twenty years with the film Black Book.
Black Book focuses on Rachel Stein (Carice van Houten), a young Jewish woman in Nazi occupied Holland late in World War 2. When stein and her family try to escape they are found by the Gestapo who murder her entire family. Stein escapes the massacre and flees to occupied Amsterdam where she meets up with the local resistance group. Along the way Stien meets a German officer named Ludwig Müntze (Sebastian Koch) who is clearly attracted to her. The resistance convinces Stein to seduce Müntze in order to spy on his activities. Over the course of this espionage Stien spots an officer named Günther Franken (Waldemar Kobus) whom she recognizes from the massacre she escaped from.
I?ll leave the summery at that because a big part of the fun of Black Book comes from seeing the story unfold in new and unexpected ways. The film?s original story written by Verhoven and long time collaborator Gerard Soeteman is the film?s biggest asset. It moves along in the great tradition of World War 2 spy films. The film is not just a thriller, its story goes beyond the war itself and into the post-war issues. The characters manage to surprise often and the viewer is fully invested in what happens to the characters.
The film also has a few subtle parallels with the current state of world affairs. The Nazi occupiers refer to the resistance group as ?terrorists? throughout, a label I doubt was specifically used by the Nazis but which does serve to point out that one man?s terrorist is another man?s freedom fighter, as well as examine the ramifications of refusing to negotiate with such organizations. More interesting still is the post-war aspects of the story in which many people have their lives ruined by being given a label without being given a trial to explain themselves.
Despite the great story, the film is burdened with an abundance of flaws, mostly courtesy of Paul Verhoven?s general wackiness. Verhoven seems to feel obligated to fill this movie with the sexual material that Hollywood stopped allowing him to use, despite the fact that most of it is completely inappropriate in this setting. There were certainly sexual aspects of the story, namely Stein?s affair with Müntze, but Verhoven also adds a lot of extra stuff that is completely out of place. A big part of the problem is that Verhoven was never know for the type of serious artistic eroticism that may have worked here; instead he is known for campy, sleazy, borderline pornographic fare like Showgirls. This material works as what it is in the more frivolous films Verhoven was making in Hollywood, but is nothing more than a distraction in a World War 2 film involving the Holocaust.
There are other problems as well, most notably a completely gratuitous frame story which could easily be cut and also removes any suspense about the fate of the Stein character. Also the movie runs into some major third act problems, the last half an hour feels fairly anti-climactic and it also has an ending which seems to contradict the movie?s ultimate message.
All that said, I still enjoyed Black Book. I think the story is so strong that it still manages to stand up despite its director?s unfortunate excesses. There are better movies about the subject matter this film depicts, still there was more than enough here to keep me intrigued. Recommended, but with a lot of reservations.

Aging, has been a major theme in cinema this year, particularly the effect that aging has on those related to the aging party. Julien Schnabel?s The Diving Bell and Butterfly depicted the entrapment the protagonists father felt as a result oof his advanced age, while Sarah Polley?s Away From Her showed the ravages of Alzheimer?s and the effect it had on the husband of an afflicted woman who stopped remembering him. Tamara Jenkins? new film The Savages, focuses on the problems a pair of siblings face as their father reaches the end of his life.
The film begins in Sun City, Arizona where an old man named Lenny Savage (Philip Bosco) is living with his girlfriend, and fellow senior citizen, Doris Metzger (Rosemary Murphy). Lenny, begins to act out against Metzger?s caretaker (David Zayas), a sign that he has been falling into dementia. At this point the film cuts to New York, where Lenny?s daughter Wendy Savage (Laura Linney) is contacted and informed of her father?s condition. Wendy has been working as a temp while writing plays that don?t get produced. She has been estranged from Lenny, who was not a good father, but her forceful personality makes her want to do something about the situation. Her brother, Jon Savage (Phillip Seymour Hoffman), is less exited to reunite with Lenny I his condition. But, when Doris dies and her family decides to sell her house, they are left with no choice but to find a new home for their father.
The Savages is a dark comedy in the vein of The Squid and the Whale and About Schmidt (whose director, Alexander Payne, executive produces here). The film is about a dysfunctional family, but in a much more cynical way than last year?s Little Miss Sunshine. The two lead characters, Jon and Wendy, are neurotic New York intellectuals who have inflated views of their lives. The film sympathizes with both, but isn?t afraid to show the numerous flaws both characters have.
Wendy, is a neurotic control freak who feels it is her responsibility make everything perfect, even though she has no real control more often than not. She is sleeping with a married man 13 years her elder, but seems to ignore her own guilt in the commencement of this affair. Her key flaw is her inability to see the writing on the wall, she keeps applying for a Guggenheim fellowship even though she?s been rejected eight times, and this inability to face the facts manifests itself in her constant nitpicking about where she can put her father. Laura Linney?s performance is a definite asset to the film, as she brings some real sympathy to a character that would be easy for an audience to hate. She makes this possibly over the top character feel real.
Jon Savage, is almost the opposite, he?s a character that constantly tries to go with the flow. For a while this makes him seem like the voice of reason, a straight man to Wendy?s neuroticism. While Wendy is nitpicking over choosing a nursing home for Lenny, he simply tells her ?they all kind of look the same inside.? But it?s soon made clear that he is just as much of a looser as she is and his smug feelings of superiority are generally unfounded, as he brags about only being rejected six times by Guggenheim. This character is not a stretch for Phillip Seymore Hoffman, and his performance here is nothing special, which is not to say it isn?t good. It seems that even when Hoffman is on auto-pilot he?s still pretty good.
The Savages is clearly not a light-hearted film and a simple description of the plot would not lead most people to assume it is a comedy. What?s interesting is that the film does more with the ?dramedy? dichotomy than many other projects would. One minute the film is taking dark comedic jabs at these characters, and the net minute it really begins making points about the effects of a dying patriarch on his children. In many ways the film works better as a dark comedy than a sincere drama, but it needs both elements. It doesn?t fully work as either but works pretty well as both.
Tamara Jenkins will never be mistaken for a great visual stylist but that doesn?t really matter for this type of project which, visually speaking, requires only competence; and this film definitely lives up to that modest standard. The cinematography, editing, and art direction are nothing special, but this never really distracts from the overall effort. What Jenkins does excel at is directing actors and bringing everything else together effectively, and that is a reasonable focus for this kind of project.
The Savages is hardly a perfect film, and its biggest flaw is repetition. There are a lot of redundant scenes here that make points that have already been made previously. About midway through the film they were still reestablishing character tendencies that had already been established. While this is a problem, it is not damning if only because these redundant scenes are still very good and usually pretty funny. I was never bored by The Savages, but I recognize that it could have used a little trimming.
If for nothing else, I can recommend The Savages for the solid performances from the leads. After that I?d still recommend it for its interesting character interactions and a handful of very funny moments. Yet still, I can?t say the movie blew me away. There are a lot of bigger and better things in theaters now that are more worth going to now. The Savages is a solid piece of work, but you shouldn?t feel guilty about waiting to see it on DVD.

I sat down to see Ben Affleck?s directorial debut Gone Baby Gone in the smallest auditorium in the theater it was playing at. It was one of those lame two aisle, non-stadium, auditoriums I usually try to avoid by going to see things on opening day. As I watched the still advertising and trivia slideshow in front of me I noticed an unusual red letter ?X? in the corner of the screen. There were only two other people in the auditorium when the lights went down and the trailers began, and the film was started ten minutes late. Then as the trailers ended and the Miramax log went up the screen suddenly went black. When the picture returned there was no sound to speak of. I wasn?t sure whether this was a deliberate part of the film or not, once people began talking it became clear that the projectionist was in error. I stepped out of the auditorium and told an usher about the problem. By the time this was fixed ten minutes had passed without sound; as such I missed a lot of important exposition and desperately needed to catch up. This was not helped when I was distracted by the Toshiba screensaver that went over the screen for a few minutes, or the line that went up and down the screen for at least two reels. I was also distracted by planning out how I was going to confront the theater manager when the movie was over.
I did end up getting a free movie ticket out of it, but my experience watching Gone Baby Gone was certainly compromised. I tell you all this in the interest of full discloser. I obviously didn?t see it under optimal conditions and this may also compromise my review. Still, I will try to describe my impressions of the film, which is flawed, but not without its merits.
The film is about Patrick Kenzie, (Casey Affleck), who works as a private investigator in a blue color Boston neighborhood with his Girlfriend Angie (Michelle Monaghan). He and Angie are hired by Lionel McCready (Titus Welliver) and Beatrice McCready (Amy Madigan) to help find their missing niece, Amanda (Madeline O'Brien) who was abducted from her white trash (for lack of a better term) mother Helene McCready (Amy Ryan). Police chief Chief Doyle (Morgan Freeman), is skeptical about the odds of this investigation ending well and the lead detectives Nick (John Ashton) Remy (Ed Harris). This investigation leads the private investigators into a seedy underworld, it is clear that this was no average kidnapping.
Gone Baby Gone is based on a novel by Denis Lehane, who also wrote the book that was adapted into Clint Eastwood?s masterpiece Mystic River, one of my favorite films of this decade. This is quite apparent; the two movies have a number of things in common. Both are set in blue collar areas of Boston, both involve a parent mourning over a child who is the victim of crime, and both are trying to work as both a mystery and a tragedy. This comparison does not help Gone Baby Gone, Clint Eastwood?s film is quite impossible to live up too. Watching the two movies is like a study in how different a similar story can be when made by a great filmmaker and a novice.
That?s not to say that Affleck is a poor director, because he isn?t. In fact he does particularly well considering he?s been the butt of so many jokes recently. He just isn?t up to the level of Clint Eastwood, and as such Gone Baby Gone is no Mystic River. There is a lot here to suggest Affleck has a promising future. The dialogue, which Affleck co-wrote, is very good. Affleck clearly has an ear for the speech patterns of Boston, and he directs the dialogue scenes very well. Affleck also shows a flair for directing violence, and this film has quite a bit of it. Affleck also succeeds at filming the setting very well, the Boston underbelly feels very real here and Affleck deserves credit for it.
The acting in the film is hit or miss. Casey Affleck has the most to prove here, he needs to overcome the sinking suspicion that his casting was the result of blatant nepotism. In the end he succeeds, but only to a moderate degree. He looks too young for the role and generally just doesn?t seem like the kind of tough guy the role really needed. There is the occasional line suggesting that the characters around him think this way as well, but this doesn?t really sway my opinion, these line feel like they were thrown in only to make the casting work when they should have just cast someone who fit the character. Still, Casey does show a certain level of skill and generally works well in dialogue scenes, he just looks awkward as hell whenever he?s holding a gun.
More awkward however is Michelle Monaghan and his girlfriend and fellow private investigator. This is not entirely Monaghan?s fault, as this is a terrible and thankless role, but she doesn?t really help at all. This character seems to have no reason to exist other than to act as the voice of Patrick Kenzie?s conscience in a few scenes. She adds nothing to Kenzie?s investigation, and their relationship is rarely examined at all. All she does is occasionally tag along with Kenzie and maybe say one or two lines to give herself a reason to be there.
On the brighter side, there are a number of good performances by the supporting cast. Morgan freeman is up to his usual high standards in his role, and brings a lot to an important speech late in the film. Helene McCready has been getting wide praise as the grieving mother of the kidnapped girl, she doesn?t really get enough screen time, but she is quite good in the role. But the real standout here is Ed Harris, who disappears into his role as Detective Remy Bressant. I didn?t even recognize Harris until two thirds of the way into the film when I began to wonder who was giving this great performance.
The film is also marred by a large number of false endings each featuring a twist of a twist of a twist. In fact the whole second hour feels like a series of false endings. One of these twists, in retrospect, seemed like a complete tangent. The final twist never really held water for me, it basically involved people going to extreme lengths for what ultimately didn?t seem like a worthy motive.
Gone Baby Gone is no Mystic River, but it is a fairly enjoyable film. I was never bored watching it and there are a number of very good scenes. This is not the great film some people are saying it is but it definitely has its moments. It is worth seeing, but may be worth waiting until its available on DVD.

DVD Catch Up: Offside(1/30/2008)
Now that 2007 is over and there?s nothing interesting coming out in the next month or so, I can really start to do a lot of catching up with all the things from the last year that I missed out on. Some of the things I missed out of disinterest or lazyness, while other things were missed out of sheer inopportunity, one such film is this small Iranian drama which was given a miniscule release last march, but eventually found its way onto a handful of top ten lists.
The film is set on the day of a big soccer match in Tehran between the Iranian national team and the Bahrain, if Iran wins or ties they will secure a spot in the 2006 world cup. The film documents a group of young women trying to see the game live in Azadi Stadium. The problem is that women are legally banned from entering the stadium under Iranian law. The law does little to deter hardcore female soccer fans from trying to sneak in, as is depicted in the opening scene of the film in which a girl tries to sneak in but is caught at the door.
This girl, like the rest of the characters, is unnamed throughout the film. She is brought to a makeshift cage outside the stadium which is guarded by three young soldiers serving their compulsory service in the Iranian army. The film proceeds to examine and challenge the Iranian gender restriction laws, focusing of course on the restrictions at sporting events.
What really makes the film work is the general absurdity of the situation at hand. For those who don?t know, Tehran doesn?t look anything like the rural mess most people think the Middle East is, it more or less looks like a modern urban environment. Yet in this modern environment (complete with cell phones), bizarre attitudes toward women still persist almost unchallenged.
The main reason men of power cite for the stadium restriction laws is that ?a stadium is no place for women? and ?if the team loses the men will begin cursing freely.? In other words, women aren?t allowed because it would force the male fans to restrain themselves in front of female spectators. Adding to the irony is that most of these female fans are interested in seeing the game out of purely patriotic interest in this big match. The girls are clad in Iranian flags and face paint and whenever they learn that the Iranian team has done something well they go into a nationalistic chant. By banning women from the game the nation has prevented a large portion of the population from engaging in a nationalistic celebration, and for no logical reason.
Acclaimed director Jafar Panahi appears to have shot the film on video, and in a vérité style that heightens the realism. All the characters are played by ordinary people rather than professional actors, but they seem to come across fine. Interestingly, large parts of the film were actually shot discreetly at the real game between Iran and Bahrain. There are authentic crowd scenes, and because of this the film?s structure would have had to have been massively reworked on the spot depending on the outcome of the game.
The plotline here may be a bit thin for most. The film essentially plays out in real time (90 minute film, 90 minute soccer match), is more of a slice of life than a fully realized story. The real joy here is in the interesting conversations that take place along the way, as well as the overall political statement the film makes. I was a bit disappointed in the film?s ending, which fails to examine the final consequences of the situation in order to more fully look at the link between the laws and nationalism. But overall this is definitely an interesting film worth seeing to spend some time in this foreign culture.

Who doesn?t like a good explosion? If less people were intrigued by these rapid chemical reactions Hollywood would actually have to start paying writers in order to turn a profit. Hollywood action movies are silly and trivial entities, people watch them for visceral rather than intellectual thrills. I say this with tongue planted in cheek of course, I?d be a hypocrite to say it otherwise; I?ve probably seen the movie Speed 20 times after all. I?m not talking about ?thinking man?s? action movies here, there?s a huge difference between Minority Report and Commando. We?re talking about absolute junk food, movies like Bad Boys 2 in which a man is shot in the head before falling down on a land mine that proceeded to blow off his torso in the bloodiest way possible. Bad Boys 2 was the movie Michael Bay had been threatening to make for years, it was so stupid it almost had to be self conscious, and not even Michael Bay could have made it with any serious intention. What does all this have to do with the movie at hand? A lot really; this is a genre that is already so over the top as to be borderline self parody in its original form, its hard to take something like that and lampoon it. The new British comedy Hot Fuzz suffers from this.
The film tells the story of Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg) a London cop with an immaculate record. He is so efficient in fact that he makes the rest of the London cops look bad; as such his superiors transfer him to the quite rural village of Sandford. Angel is a fish out of water in this sleepy and crime free town. Angel?s new partner is Danny Butterman (Nick Frost) and overweight buffoon who?s seen to many cop movies. In regular action movie fashion the two initially dislike each other but come to form a mutual respect over the course of the film. The police force is run by Danny?s father, Inspector Frank Butterman (Jim Broadbent), who anyone who?s seen to many of these movies can guess is going to be either a compete idiot or corrupt. By sheer coincidence, a series of murders strike the town right as Angel begins his stay. There?s something rotten in the town of Sandford and Nicholas Angel may be the only one who can solve this mystery.
Hot Fuzz was written by Simon Pegg (who also stars) and Edgar Wright (who also directs). This is the same team that made the cult hit British romantic comedy (with zombies) Shaun of the Dead, a delightful comedy in which chronicled the title character?s attempt to maintain his relationship with his girlfriend all while a zombie apocalypse is going on in the background. Hot Fuzz is not really in the same style as Shaun, in fact it?s the exact opposite: while Shaun took an extreme situation and made it mundane, this effort takes mundane situations and makes them extreme. Shaun told a legitimately interesting story against a backdrop that made this story all the more funny; this is a very creative set up. Fuzz on the other hand settles for being a straight up spoof, a far more conventional format. Its hardly the first movie to spoof action movies either, the most infamous entry in the genre is almost certainly Schwarzenegger?s The Last Action Hero, an infamous bomb to be sure, but better than its reputation would suggest. Fuzz does definitely top The Last Action Hero, but it?s not really doing anything more daring than that film. Another lampoon of the genre that Fuzz doesn?t top is Mat Stone and Trey Parker?s dirty puppet show Team America: World Police, a film that fails as political satire but does perfectly spoof Jerry Bruckheimer style action films.
Fuzz is definitely flawed, but there are enough laughs in it to make it worthwhile viewing. Many critics criticized the film?s last half as a decent into the very action scenes the film was making fun of. I however think this is when the film really started to get good. The insane over the top gun fighting in this small town really had me laughing. The movie manages to pull out every cliché in the book and turn them on their heads. There are also some pretty clever jokes sprinkled through out the first two acts, like the supermarket owner played by Timothy Dalton who is so clearly the villain behind the murders even though no one can put two and two together until the formula says it can.
Hot Fuzz is not an innovative movie, its plot works no level but parody, its tone is inconsistent, yet it?s also still pretty funny. The film is more disappointing than it is bad; I guess the talent behind this is so funny they are going to manage to come up with enough good jokes to make a movie worth checking out. Still it?s hardly as funny or clever as other parodies of the action genre or the same team?s Shaun of the Dead. This might have worked but Michael Bay already did everything this is trying to do except with a straight face.

?The Simpsons? has been aired on Fox for almost eighteen years. The show had a shakey first season, but quickly became one of the smartest and funniest things on t.v. or any other medium for that matter. Unfortunately the years have not been kind to the show, most agree that the show has jumped the shark. Thirteen hundred and two people on jumptheshark.com feel jumped in 1999, Seven hundred eighty eight people say it jumped in 1997, but they all seem to feel that by the end of the millennium the show had descended into a series of pointless random gags and lame episodes that either feature lame family trips or exist solely to support a guest star?s presence. What was once the edgiest show on T.V. has become family entertainment, the formerly rebellious show has become part of the establishment. Now in 2007, more then half a decade since the series almost certainly jumped, Groening and company have decided to bring the Simpson family to the big screen with The Simpsons Movie.
The Simpson family is familiar to just about everyone, even those who?ve been living under the proverbial rock. As the movie opens, the Springfield lake has become so polluted that a big barge in the water dissolves as if it were in acid. Lisa Simpson manages to convince the town to stop polluting the lake. The town even stays true to its word, that is, until Homer (motivated by the prospect of free donuts) dumps a vat of pig waste into the lake resulting in an environmental crisis. In response to this crisis President Schwarzenegger (not voiced by the real Schwarzenegger) is told by the millionaire EPA head Russ Cargill to place a dome around all of Springfield.
Watching ?The Simpsons? on T.V. is free; so why would a viewer pay good money to see it in theaters? The answer Trey Parker and Matt Stone came up with was to take away all the censorship of T.V. and go for an all out R-rated movie, thus delivering a much different product. The Simpsons Movie does take a few liberties with its PG-13 rating that wouldn?t be taken on television. A character says the word ?goddamn? at one point, Homer gives a mob ?the finger? in another, and there?s a surprising gag involving nudity. However what you get for the most part is t.v. friendly. I would have preferred they did more with the freedom of cinema, they had an opportunity to throw around the ?s-word? and they could have used the ?f-word? at least once, but they did neither despite obvious openings for both.
There are more subtle benefits to the theatrical format. The extended length of the movie really gives the show more of a chance to breath than a thirty minute episode ever would. The fact that there are no (real) commercials also helps a lot. For someone like me who doesn?t see many animated movies, it is really different simply to see the show projected onto the big screen. The film also has a larger budget and uses a lot of computer related effects. The movie?s frame is expanded to a full 2.35:1 widescreen, and the whole thing just looks a lot sharper than the show.
The true benefit of the movie is that it is an event rather than yet another episode and as such the writers actually seem to give a damn. The movie develops a real story that carries throughout the entirety of the film rather than annoyingly switching story paths every fifteen minutes like most recent episodes have. The story focuses on the Simpson family rather than focusing on the one-note supporting characters that populate Springfield, these characters show up a lot but no one secondary character ever takes over. The movie does have guest appearances, but the movie isn?t taken over by them like so many episodes are.
Perhaps most importantly, the movie is pretty funny. There are a lot of witty lines here that elicit laughs. There are a lot of in-jokes that will have the hardcore fans giggling. There are some politically subversive gags, but the movie generally avoids major political messages. The lower physical humor doesn?t impress me much, but I?m sure it works for those looking for such material. I did laugh a number of times, not very hard mind you, but I was laughing.
That?s not to say that many of the show?s more negative aspects as of late aren?t also present. Many blame the decline of the show on the simple fact that it?s run out of ideas after nearly two decades. This can be seen in the movie, as a number of jokes and plot ideas have been seen in some variation or another in old episodes. There have been more than a few occasions where Marge and Homer have had marital problems, the town has been angry at Homer before, there have been a number of episodes where the family has gone on a trip and here they?re going on yet another one (this time to Alaska). Additionally the movie too often descends into some of the crazy ?Family Guy?-esque humor that has plagued recent episodes of the show. For example, at a peak emotional point the screen goes black and a title card comes up and reads ?To Be Continued? Immediately?. This kind of ?joke? is not only is completely unfunny but also takes the viewer completely out of the movie. This type of thing comes up repeatedly.
There really isn?t much to say about The Simpsons Movie, anyone who?s seen an episode of the show will pretty much know what they?re getting. At the end of the day it is basicly a pretty good three part episode on screen, if you have no interest in seeing that, than stay out of the theater. If you are interested in such a thing, The Simpsons Movie won?t disappoint.

Being a radio DJ is one of the great fantasies I suspect most people have; being able to decide what people listen to and being able to tell the people what they may or may not want to hear. Being given a soapbox to communicate with an entire city is something that is extremely appealing. The truth of radio broadcasting is probably a lot less glamorous than this fantasy, after all most DJs don?t even pick the songs they play, but the idea is still worth fantasizing about. Talk to Me is about one of those radio personalities that keep this dream alive, in act he might be partly responsible for that dream?s existance.
The film tells the true story of Ralph ?Petey? Green (Don Cheadle), a Washington D.C. DJ in the mid-sixties who was started his DJ career by playing records over the PA system of the prison he was sentenced to spend ten years of his life. After his parole Green went to Dewey Hughes (Chiwetel Ejiofor) the programming director at WOL, a fledgling D.C. R&B station, who was the brother of one of Green?s fellow inmates. Hughes is initially horrified at the notion of putting this profane convict on the air, but is eventually won over by Green?s streetwise personality and believes this personality will help regain the station?s African-American audience. E.G. Sonderling (Martin Sheen), the station?s owner, is eventually convinced to give Green a chance. Green quickly becomes a counter-culture sensation and must come to terms with his potential fame.
Petey Green was the right man at the right time for WOL. Green first started broadcasting in 1966, America was divided and people were fed up with the establishment. This was the perfect environment for a rebel like Green. Green?s predecessor was a mild mannered and fake sounding and inoffensive personality whose show was clearly targeted at an older white demographic. Green had the audacity to simply say what was on his mind in his own flamboyant way. He was willing to get under people?s skin, he was the original shock-jock. Green would open his show by saying ?I'll tell it to the hot, I'll tell it to the cold. I'll tell it to the young, I'll tell it to the old. I don't want no laughin', I don't want no cryin', and most of all, no signifyin'. This is Petey Greene's Washington.? Green spoke to the black community at a time when it desperately needed an authentic voice. Green was broadcasting the night news broke of Martin Luther King?s assassination and helped calm the city with his broadcast and at a James Brown concert the next night.
The main attraction here, by far, is the excellent performance by Don Cheadle. This may just be the best performance yet from this reliable character actor. The role allows him to have certain pathos while still being a very comical entity. Green is electrifying whenever he?s on the air and it?s easy to see why a city was captivated by his outrageous personality. Cheadle talks and acts much differently in the movie than he does in reality, the actor disappears into the role. The supporting cast is also solid, Ejiofor is solid as Green?s friend and business partner. Taraji P. Henson make a definite impression as Green?s long term girlfriend Vernell Watson and Martin Sheen is memorable as the stations older white owner. Cedric the Entertainer also makes as surprise addition to the ensemble as late night DJ "Nighthawk" Bob Terry.
The movie?s problem however is that it works better as a comedic romp through the radio industry than it does as a biographical drama. The movie begins to fall apart in its third act when it falls back on traditional biopic patterns. Petey Green had a personality that is very fun to watch but his life simply didn?t have the same gravitas as figures like Malcolm X and Gandhi, and he really can?t support the kind of heavyweight importance the movie places on him in the third act. Green?s disinterest in fame and somewhat rocky friendship with Hughes isn?t an entirely awful plot development; it simply isn?t as interesting or dramatic as the type of material that was featured in biopics of people like the above mentioned figures or even of someone like Johnny Cash. After Green has achieved success as a DJ the movie runs out of places to go and suddenly tries to cover a good twenty years in a short amount of time even though the preceding movie seemed to cover a only two or three.
Despite the film?s third act problems, the sheer joy of the movies first two thirds or so should not be understated. Every word that comes out of Petey Green?s mouth feels like a very memorable quote. This flamboyant figure is very fun to watch especially as portrayed by Don Cheadle who is giving Oscar caliber work here. Talk to Me is so good for so long and Cheadle is so great that the movie is still worth seeing despite its problems; just don?t expect it to stand up next to other, better, biopics.

There are distinct differences between horror movies and monster movies. Some monster movies are indeed horror movies, but many are a genre unto themselves. Movies like Ron Underwood?s Tremors, John Carpenter?s The Thing, and David Croenberg?s The Fly have all told great stories that happened to have large dangerous monsters at their centers. The genre has been around since early B-movies of the Godzilla vein, but the granddaddy of most modern Monster movies is almost certainly Steven Spielberg?s Jaws. As everyone (and I mean everyone) already knows, Jaws was effective because of how little of the shark was shown. Most filmmakers studied that film and reused the trick for their own monster movies. After thirty years of this it?s nice to see a film like The Host that completely ignores this trick and is willing to just show a monster doing its thing.
The film begins with and American scientist ordering his South Korean assistant to dump large quantities of formaldehyde into the Han River. Predictably this results in the creation of a mutated amphibian monster the size of a semi-truck. This creature announces itself to the world when it begins a violent attack at the riverside. At the riverside during the attack are Park Gang-du (Kang-ho Song) and his daughter Hyun-seo (Ah-sung Ko). Toward the end of the attack the monster captures Hyun-seo and hides her in his sewer lair for some reason. The American government reveals that one of their officers present at the river attack had become infected with a virus, as such Park Gang-du, his father (Hie-bong Byeon), his brother (Hae-il Park) and his sister (Du-na Bae) are all detained and quarantined. This quirky and often dysfunctional family must work together to escape custody and save Hyun-seo before the monster gets hungry again.
The monster in The Host is fairly well designed; It looks a bit too venerable but has enough of a menacing presence to make the attack scenes work. The special effects are pretty good by the standards of non-hollywood cinema, it is clear they were working with a budget here. The monster doesn?t look like much compared with a Hollywood production, but they?re good enough to not be distracting during the creature scenes.
There are a number of political undertones in the script, but it is fairly simple minded and at many times feels like little more than xenophobia. The United States is blamed for pretty much everything that goes on in the movie: an American dumps the chemicals that create the monster, The United States military is blamed for starting a virus scare, and the United States begins dropping a chemical called ?Agent Yellow? on the city for no apparent reason. This simple minded Anti-Americanism works to add a sense of intelligence to this potentially mindless script but it hardly stands up to the level of a serious political movie.
The human characters in The Host are amusing. The father, Park Gang-du, is a bit of a slacker, and his father works pretty well as a family patriarch. Gang-du?s sister is an Olympic archer (for reasons that will be very obvious to anyone familiar with this genre) while his brother seems to be a fairly generic badass. None of these characters are overly complex or even particularly interesting, but they aren?t transparently weak either. They are humorous enough though, and they provide a good human perspective to the story. The characters don?t stand out but they are good enough.
?Good enough? actually applies to most of the movie?s many aspects. The film tries to be a lot of things; it tries to be a monster movie, a political movie, and a film about a dysfunctional family. The film succeeds moderately well at all of these things; it?s a jack of all trades and a master of none. The Host will please fans of the genre and those looking for something different in their sci-fi action, but it will probably not blow anyone away.

Michael Winterbottom has become of this century?s most respected filmmakers in a short period of time. Winterbottom has worked out of England, producing films like 24 Hour Party People and Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story which are well known in film circles but haven?t really crossed over to the mainstream. Winterbottom also has a political side to his work with films like The Road to Guantanamo and In This World. His newest film A Mighty Heart certainly deals with current events, but it is not a political film, in the sense that it does not push a political agenda. Instead it functions as a character study and ultimately as a tragedy.
The film tells the true story of Mariane (Angelina Jolie) and Daniel Pearl (Dan Futterman), a husband and wife team of ?Wall Street Journal? reporters doing a story in Karachi, Pakistan. Mariane is six months pregnant and both are planning to leave Pakistan as soon as Daniel makes one last interview. Unfortunately, Daniel Pearl does not return from this final interview, and it soon becomes clear that he has been kidnapped. The film then becomes a procedural about those trying to find Pearl.
Michael Winterbottom is part of a recent informal movement away from Hollywood style expressionism and toward a stark realistic vision. Other filmmakers making these kind of contemporary actualities are Paul Greengrass, and to a certain extent Michael Haneke. These filmmakers, often inspired by Werner Herzog, seem interested in using a documentary style to make narrative cinema. They shoot handheld, frequently using digital photography. A Mighty Heart is typical of this style, and bears a number of its strengths and weaknesses.
The film is an attempt to accurately document the events of the real world situation to a ?T?. The film is almost a re-enactment of the investigation. I personally am not overly familiar with the details of what really happened, and though I can?t authoritatively say this film is accurate, I can say that it certainly feels accurate. The dialogue is down to earth and realistic, as are the sets and cinematography. The film is shot digitally and makes no attempts to hide this. Digital photography has replaced grainy 16mm film-stock as the format of choice when trying to evoke documentary style camera work. I have always had mixed feelings about digital photography, on one hand it simply doesn?t look as good as 35mm photography, and yet there is a certain allure to it. Digital photography seems to capture images much the same way the human eye does, it?s a very down to earth format, and it fits the kind of realism movies like this use.
The problem however, is that the details of the investigation that this film chronicles are not particularly interesting. The attempt to find Daniel Pearl is complicated, and a little bit convoluted. When the film is in procedural mode, it is hard to follow, confusing, and a little bit boring. I began to loose interest fairly quick, especially since we already know the outcome of this event. There are certainly events that have been compelling enough to make for engaging film subjects without being put through a Hollywood filter; this just wasn?t one of them.
What saves the movie is Angelina Jolie. Jolie gives a great, nuanced performance worthy of the praise it?s received. Jolie works hear wit a consistant and believable accent and has altered her look to fit the role. Jolie has a number of heart wrenching emotional scenes she must pull off without going over the top. It would be easy to over-act with this role, but Jolie avoids this temptation beautifully. The Mariane Pearl story works far better than the police procedural storyline; it?s what makes the film work.
What Michael Winterbottom has made is a film that?s hard to love, but impossible not to respect. There?s little here to really fault, Jolie?s performance is great and the rest of the cast is good too. The script is detailed and subtle, the editing is great, and the directing is great. Unfortunately, all this talent is being put toward a story that just didn?t interest me very much.

When he?s behind a microphone, Chris Rock is one of our greatest treasures. Rock?s HBO specials like Bring the Pain, Bigger and Blacker, and Never Scared are masterpieces of standup comedy. Those specials average sixty eight minutes in length, yet yield ten times as many laughs as even the best film comedies. Unfortunately Rock?s acting career hasn?t been as consistent as his stand-up career. He?s managed to be a decent supporting actor in other people?s movies, but he hasn?t really been able to lead a feature film. Early in 2007 Rock released I Think I Love My Wife, a film which looked like it could break that trend. It was an adult targeted film with a mature sounding storyline. Additionally it sported an R-Rating, it seemed studios were finally willing to give the guy a chance to make a movie without censoring himself.
The film focuses on Richard Cooper (Chris Rock), a stock trader on Wall Street who?s happily married to with two kids. Despite his seemingly ideal life, Cooper finds himself bored with his wife Brenda (Gina Torres). The marriage has descended into repetition and tedium and the couple?s sex life has become non-existent. Cooper?s frustration is at the tipping point when Nikki Tru (Kerry Washington), and old friend, surprises him at his office having moved to the city and needing a job reference. Cooper does not start sleeping with Nikki, but he does become attracted to her and begins going on what could be called dates with her. Cooper?s work colleague George (Steve Buscemi) warns him that he?s too emotional to juggle both Nikki and his wife; George is right too, the ?affair? causes an identity crisis of sorts for Cooper.
I Think I Love My Wife, a remake of the 1972 French art film Love in the Afternoon, is an attempt at smart Woody Allen style, upper class comedy. Rock directed the film and wrote it with fellow stand-up Louis C.K. Both of the writers have discussed the pitfalls of marriage in their stand-up careers, and the film is full of comic observations about the institution. The boredom of marriage is not an original topic, sitcoms like Everybody Loves Raymond have discussed the topic ad nausea, however there does prove to be enough strength in the subject matter to support another movie.
As a straight up comedy the film is moderately successful. There are funny moments throughout, although most of the best laughs are frontloaded at the beginning, as the film focuses more on the romantic elements in the third act, with the exception of one very unfunny and misguided trip into broad, gross-out humor toward the end. In many ways the film holds back from being a laugh riot in order to focus on the Woody Allen style romance storyline.
The romantic storyline is hardly perfect. The film is never quite sure what to make of the Nikki character: is she just a temptress? Or is she just as confused as Cooper? The movie never seems to decide. The movie is told through voice over by Cooper, a tactic that many critics jump on. The V.O. here is a bit of a crutch here, but frankly unnecessary V.O. has never been the pet peeve for me that it is for many; it gets the story across and helps out a few jokes, debating about it seems petty. The movie can also become a little repetitive with Cooper constantly debating with himself about his eventual decision; he seems to go on one or two too many outings with Nikki that end the same way.
The acting in the movie is pretty good all around. Kerry Washington is great on screen, she has a seductive quality that jumps off the screen, we can understand what it is about this woman that has Cooper considering infidelity against all logic. Gina Torres is also good, although she doesn?t have as much screen time as one would expect considering her character?s place in the title. Bushemi?s small but interesting role is also well acted, this performance is particularly interesting because Buscemi seems to have ditched his worn out weirdo-shtick. It is interesting seeing this guy act like a normal person for once. As for Rock himself, he?s no great leading man, but he is improving. This is definitely the best work he?s done, but that?s not really saying too much.
The real problem here isn?t Chris Rock the actor, it?s Chris Rock the director. His work here is good, but in the hands of a more experienced filmmaker it could have been great. Still one must give Rock a lot of credit for trying. Rock?s stand up colleague, Eddie Murphy, has been getting lower and lower brow, Chris Rock has been getting higher and higher brow. While I shudder thinking about what new low Murphy will hit after Norbit (which I admittedly haven?t seen, but am willing to believe what I?ve heard), I?m very interested to see where Rock will be doing next.

The Green Goblin, main villain of the first movie in the Spider-Man series said to Spider-Man ?The only thing they like to see more than a hero is to see a hero fail, fall, die trying. In spite of everything you've done, eventually they will hate you...Why bother?? This fall from grace occurs in Spider-Man 3, both in the story of Peter Parker and in fan reaction to the series.
The original Spider-Man was an origin story; it was Peter Parker learning to be Spider-Man. That first installment was hardly perfect; it was marred by many small problems that really added up. The second film, Spider-Man 2, focused more on Peter Parker learning how to be Peter Parker as well as Spider-Man. That second installment was light years ahead of the original, a near-perfect sequel. The second film left Peter as a relatively well adjusted young man; there was really no where to go but down after the seminal second film for both Peter Parker and the series. One must keep that in mind when looking at Spider-Man 3.
The film opens with Peter Parker and Spider-Man at the height of their fame and happiness. Peter is planning to ask Mary Jane to marry him and the public is really beginning to appreciate Spider-Man as a hero. Thing quickly begin to fall apart for both hero and nerd. Peter?s relationship with Mary Jane dissolves when he becomes to full of himself to notice her plight when she is fired from a Broadway role. Spider-Man on the other hand is highly frustrated in his inability to defeat the Sandman, a nemesis who was reportedly the true murderer of Peter?s uncle Ben. All the while Peter must deal with the new green Goblin; this time his former friend Harry Osbourne who is consumed with revenge because of his father?s death. All this is too much challenge for even Spider-Man to deal with. It seems that the solution literally falls from the sky in the form of an Alien symbiote called Venom which develops a more powerful black suit around Spider-Man?s costume. But when the symbiote begins to negatively affect Peter?s behavior it becomes clear that this ?solution? may be peter?s biggest problem of all.
As most everyone predicted before the movie was even filming, Spider-Man 3 has one villain to many. But it?s hard to pick one to cut out. James Franco?s decent into becoming the new Green Goblin was built too heavily into the plot of the last to sequels to hold onto for another sequel, and he provides some of the movies best action sequences. Thomas Haden Church as The Sandman provides something the Goblin can?t, a nemesis that Spider-Man can?t defeat without the black suit. The final villain may be a waste of a character, but he isn?t in the movie long enough really hurt it. Raimi probably shouldn?t have set Harry Osbourne up to be the Goblin so soon, that?s the problem with this kind of foreshadowing; it can be bad if it isn?t perfectly planned.
The human story is also problematic, Peter?s blindness to Mary Jane?s feelings is a bit unbelievable and Mary Jane is too quick to jump to conclusions about how Peter is behaving. One reasonable conversation could probably solve most of their problems. It must be understood, however, that this is based on a comic book not an Emily Bronte novel; serious relationship insights isn?t what this medium is known for. One must accept some of the weaknesses of the comic book medium being adopted along with the strengths when a medium is captured so faithfully on film.
The action scenes here are of the highest level. The Spider-Man movies really have a monopoly on aerial hand-to-hand combat, there?s really no where else to go for this type of action. The special effects are top notch, the spectacle elements alone are worth the price of admission. The opening battle is probably the best, Peter Parker fights the new Green Goblin un-costumed in mid-air in stunning fashion. This type of scene shows how much special effects have progressed since the original Spider-Man opened in 2002, this puts the fights against the original Goblin to shame. The fights with the Sandman are also interesting; they?re like high speed fist fights with the T-1000.
There are some definite script problems in Spider-Man 3. The largest of these problems is an over-reliance on coincidence to further the story. There is also a comedic turn in the movie that is mostly too successfully funny to really complain about, although this is taken just a little to far at one point. There is also a problematic sub-plot in which Topher Grace blames Peter Parker for something that is really his own fault.
Spider-Man 3 should really be judged for what it is, not what it could have been. It doesn?t succeed as well as the second installment of the series or as well as better super-hero movies like Batman Begins. It should also be given credit for being a lot better then lackluster superhero movies like X-Men 3 or Batman and Robin. It is a lot better then the average summer blockbuster. It has better action thrills, funnier intentional comedy, and less melodramatic romance. It will probably be remembered the way The Return of the Jedi is, still liked but not up to the level of its predecessors.

Brian De Palma is one of the most wildly inconsistent film directors still working today. It?s amazing how someone who?s made such classics as Scarface, Carrie, and The Untouchables has also made such large scale disasters as Bonfire of the Vanities, Mission to Mars, and Snake Eyes. The director?s inconsistence insures that one never knows what to expect from a De Palma film. De Palma?s last effort, 2006?s The Black Dahlia most definitely fell in the latter category. After this critical and financial bomb, very few eyes were on De Palma?s next project until Bill O?Reilly found out about its subject matter, at which point it became the most controversial film since The Passion of the Christ.
Redacted is a loosely fictionalized re-telling of a real incident that occurred in during the current Iraq war. The film follows a platoon stationed in Baghdad, particularly one soldier named Angel Salazar (Izzy Diaz) who is trying to make a video diary of his experiences in order to help him get into film school. Two members of the platoon, B.B. Rush (Daniel Stewart Sherman) and Reno Flake (Patrick Carroll), are loose cannons who have recently been involved in a controversial shooting at a checkpoint. These two soldiers frequently use racial epithets to refer to Iraqi citizens and generally seem to have a sadistic streak. A popular officer, Master Sergeant Sweet (Ty Jones), is killed by a hidden bomb. After this incident Rush and Flake are filled with rage and devise a plan to rape and kill a fifteen year old Iraqi girl and kill her family.
It is not hard to see why this concept has caused a lot of controversy, almost entirely from people who haven?t actually seen the film. Bill O?Reilly in particular has come out against the film and called on his viewers to protest the movie with ?support our troops? signs. Had he actually seen the film, or given a damn about its real content in the first place, he would have found the movie is hardly the anti-troop polemic he describes. Flake and Rush, are defiantly not the heroes O?Reilly would like to pretend each and every American soldier is, but they are also not figments of De Palma?s imaginations. The film is based on the Al-Mahmudiyah killings that occurred in March of 2006. The guilt of the American soldiers in this real life killing is not a matter of contention, all three have been found guilty and been sentenced to prison for over 90 years each. If this film is a lie, then why have the real killers, Spc. James Barker, Sgt. Paul E. Cortez, and Pfc. Jesse V. Spielman, all been court marshaled? The answer is that the story of Redacted is an inconvenient truth if ever there was one; that perhaps not every soldier in Iraq isn?t an angel after all.
This is not to say that the film believes every soldier in Iraq is a rapist or killer, far from it in fact. Of the five members of the platoon in the film, only two are involved in the killing, two other members are vehemently opposed to their plan, while the other merely tags along out of morbid curiosity. The characters of Lawyer McCoy (Rob Devaney) and Gabe Blix (Kel O'Neill) in fact mostly live up to the image of the heroic soldier in Iraq for the right reasons. But the film is not simplistic enough to make this a story of a few bad apples that need to be sorted out. Rather, it seems to argue that this incident is the inevitable result of the war?s conditions. The soldiers in the movie are not from perfect back grounds, Rush and Flake seem to have been raised in unstable homes, with violent pasts. These unstable individuals, who went to Iraq more out of necessity than out of altruism, are placed in an incredibly tense and stressful situation and like soldiers in every war make the mistake of demonizing their enemies.
These kinds of incidents have happened in every war before and every war to come, in fact this story very closely mirrors the plot of Brian De Palma?s 1989 Vietnam film Casualties of War. However the similarities between the two films end at the overall story, in fact the entire film is a complete stylistic departure from every other film Brian De Palma has ever made. The typical De Palma film is visually extremely stylish. He often uses very slick widescreen cinematography with lots of color. This was even true in films like Casualties of War, a film in which such treatment generally seemed inappropriate. Instead what we get is a borderline documentary that appears to be culled from various sources like security camera?s, news reports, clips posted on the internet, and especially Angel?s video diaries. These different sources look fairly authentic, though they were in fact all created by De Palma. The video diaries for example have deliberately been made to look amateurish and shaky, and edited using cheesy Final Cut transitions. The security footage is probably the most questionable source, as very few security cameras I know of record sound, but it looks appropriate as they consist of static black and white shots. Also present is footage supposedly from a French documentary crew, which is probably the most professional looking footage in the film. De Palma?s decision to make the documentary crew French helps to underscore the linguistic confusion in the situation being ?documented.?
This mockumentary collage approach works both for and against the film. On one hand it is a unique and experimental style and it gives the film a gritty realism that is needed. On the other hand the style isn?t all that aesthetically pleasing at all, this may be the point, but the fact is in no way a fun film to watch. I?m not saying De Palma should have fallen back on his old style like he did for Casualties of War, but a nice compromise could have been reached, perhaps something along the line of Paul Greengrass? style in films like United 93 and Bloody Sunday.
De Palma seems to have cast mostly unknown actors in order to maintain the illusion of reality. Unfortunately, this decision backfires occasionally, when you?re trying to maintain the illusion of reality you need really strong actors, and the cast here is passable at best. Ty Jones comes across the best here, his small role as Master Sergeant Sweet is probably the best thing in the entire movie. But other actors here are not as successful, especially the actors playing the two rapists who probably have the most challenging roles. Flake and Rush generally come across like stereotypical rednecks when their roles generally require increased psychological complexity.
What Redacted does do particularly well is to simply paint a picture of what Iraq is like. I generally found random slices of life in the movie more interesting than the overall rape storyline. Ultimately I think De Palma?s message has less to do with the conduct of soldiers than it does with the way the war has been reported. The mainstream media has been widely criticized for only showing sanitized images of the war, something this movie is in no way guilty of. Mainstream is the last word anyone should use when describing Redacted. While other movies like Gavin Hood?s Rendition explore current events while remaining within the context of mainstream cinema, Redacted is a very unconventional film that pulls no punches. It?s an experimental film meant for a very narrow niche audience of open-minded people who want to see the horrors of war at their most extreme. This is not perfect by any stretch and its certainly not for everyone, but it?s a ballsy piece of work that?s dramatically different from anything else in theaters now, and for that reason I have a lot of respect for it.

Among the saddest fates one can receive is a slow death by sickness. In such cases people end up going out with a whimper rather than a bang; it is undignified and sad. Death however is not always the biggest toll on families struck by these afflictions. Family members are also affected by the ailments of their loved ones. Away From Her is the story of one of these family members who must watch his wife deteriorate in front of his eyes.
The film focuses on Grant Anderson (Gordon Pinsent) a middle-aged man who?s wife Fiona (Julie Christie) has been struck with Alzheimer?s disease. Grant makes the tough decision to put his wife in an assisted living home, something he is extremely reluctant to do as he would not be able to visit her during her first month at the institution. Despite his hesitations, Fiona wants to remain at the institution where she believes she needs to be. When he returns the next month he finds his wife no longer remembers him and has formed a relationship with another man who is a patient at the home.
Away From Her was directed by Sarah Polley, an actress who had a memorable role in Atom Egoyan?s great 1997 film The Sweet Hereafter at the age of eighteen. Now ten years later she is making her directing debut with Egoyan acting as the producer. The film is based on a short story by Alice Munro.
As a story, Away From Her isn?t overly compelling. It shows an interesting situation and works fairly well as a character study. What it lacks is a compelling conflict to carry it through. It is interesting for a while but begins to drag about half way through and doesn?t really go anywhere. It feels like Polley took this short story and tried too hard to expand it. It unfortunately gets a little boring after a while.
What redeems the film is a pair of excellent performances by Gordon Pinsent and Julie Christie. Christie?s performance is especially strong, playing a mentally disturbed person has long been a good way to earn respect as an actor and this is no exception. Pinsent has a less showy role, but it?s also a more important role, and he pulls it off real well.
Still, at the end of the day this story just didn?t really grab me and the film simply loses steam after about the half-way point. It?s a noble effort with some great acting, but ultimately it didn?t really work for me.

When I was in high school I went through a real Stephen King phase. I read a lot of his book during that phase, and I can?t say I entirely regret it. I would never say King was the best author, but the guy really knows how to tell a story. However I got to a point in reading his books where I began to notice a lot of patterns and re-used ideas, at which point I basically got sick of the guy and stopped bothering to read his books. Still, there?s a soft spot in my fiction reading heart for the modern master of horror fiction, and I generally try to catch the movies based on his books whenever they sound promising. I never got around to reading King?s novella ?The Mist,? but the recent film adaptation sounded real promising. It is directed by Frank Darabont, who did wonders adapting King?s ?Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption? and The Green Mile, and it had a very interesting cast. As such I was excited to find out what lurked behind The Mist.
The film begins with an oncoming thunderstorm sending a poster artist named David Drayton (Thomas Jane) and his wife Stephanie (Kelly Collins Lintz), and son Billy (Nathan Gamble) flee to their basement. After the storm the family emerges from the basement they see an ominous mist lingering over a nearby lake. A tree belonging to a neighbor fell over onto the family?s boathouse. David has apparently been having land disputes with this neighbor, Brent Norton (Andre Braugher), but ultimately agrees to give him a ride to town where both parties have decided to pick up some supplies. On their way to the small Maine town they notice a number of military vehicles heading in the opposite direction, but write this off as a coincidence. Soon after they arrive at the convenience store, they suddenly see the mist coming straight toward them. A man with a bleeding nose runs in and yells ?there?s something in the mist, it got my friend!? They store patrons close all their doors and wait for help. It soon becomes apparent that the mist is populated by a number of horrible Lovecraftian monsters, and leaving the store would leave everyone exposed to attack. However, not all is well inside the store which is populated by an eclectic group of people including a religious zealot named Mrs. Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden) who begins preaching about the end of the world.
As a horror film, The Mist is mostly a failure. There is a certain apocalyptic creepiness to the story, and it works as long as what lies beyond the mist is a mystery. But Darabont does not take the ?what you don?t see is scarier? Jaws approach. Instead Darabont pretty quickly shows the monsters, and this could work if they were truly frightful creatures, but they?re not. Unfortunately, this film falls victim to some very bad CGI effects. These monsters don?t look real at all, and as such they aren?t very frightening, or even slightly creepy. There is some suspense to be found here, whenever things stay behind the mist the film works, but as soon as the attacks start it loses pretty much any tension it has built up.
The film comes a lot closer to succeeding whenever it tries to be a Lord of the Flies style treatise on how humans react in crisis situations, but this is quickly undermined by a severe lack of subtlety. As the situation in the grocery store worsens, the character of Mrs. Carmody becomes more important, and her religious rants start to inspire the people around her. It is amazing how Stephen King, someone who is a master of creating inhuman monsters, can be so bad at creating believable human villains in his work. This type of over the top villain can be found in nearly every book he?s ever written and is usually a rather jarring distraction. This is neither the first nor last time this over the top human villain has come in the form of a religious zealot either, Carrie?s mother comes to mind as the most obvious example. Marcia Gay Harden tries her damndest to make this over the top character work, and in lesser hands it would have been a lot worse, but ultimately there was really no way to make this dialogue work.
It doesn?t help that all of the characters in the film are two dimensional, underdeveloped types. This wouldn?t be a too much of a problem if this was just a horror film, but when it?s relying on the human nature aspect of the story for its ultimate success, this becomes an insurmountable problem. The acting in general is a mixed bag, ranging from weak to solid, but mostly sitting at average. Andre Braugher is an actor I?ve had a pretty deep respect for since he was on one of my favorite television shows, ?Homicide: Life on the Street.? Like Harden he makes a poorly written character almost work, but unfortunately is not given much screen time. Thomas Jane (of Punisher fame) is not an actor with a great pedigree; thankfully his performance never quite falls below average. Had Jane?s performance truly failed this movie would have been in much bigger trouble than it is.
There?s a lot to like here, this could have really been a great ?Twilight Zone? type thriller had it not been for some key mistakes. The monsters seem to have been pretty well designed, though the CGI department botched their execution. A huge monster seen toward the end is particularly brilliant. As over the top as Mrs. Carmody, she is at least pretty fun to hate, and the film in general begins to really pick up in its third act leading up to about the darkest ending that could ever be conceived by a human mind. This was a great movie that was ultimately brought down by a set of devastating flaws. I feel tempted to give the film a pass, as I really would rather a movie fail shooting for the moon than lay in mediocrity while playing it safe, but at the end of the day it doesn?t really work on either of the levels it was trying for, and as such I can only very moderately recommend it perhaps as a rental or matinee.

This Halloween, millions of dollars will be spent by audiences seeing Saw IV, part of a long series of horror movies placed in the controversial ?torture-porn? sub-genre. Many have theorized that these torture based horror films have been exploiting subliminal fears the American public has about the type of torture that has occurred in places like Abu Ghraib. Gavin Hood?s new film Rendition has nothing to do this idiotic sub-genre, it challenges these controversial tactics head on.
The film is about the CIA?s controversial practice of ?extraordinary rendition.? With this practice the CIA essentially kidnaps terror suspects and transports them to foreign countries where they are subjected to interrogations involving torture to gather intelligence. The film tells the fictional story of Anwar El-Ibrahimi (Omar Metwally), an Egyptian ex-patriot living in America who falls victim to this practice. Shortly after a bomb goes off in an unnamed Middle Eastern country, El-Ibrahimi is captured at an air-port on his way home from a trade conference in Cape Town and is moved to another unnamed country. There he is interrogated by a man named Abasi Fawal (Igal Naor). claiming he received calls from the terrorist behind the bombing. Inexperienced CIA analyst Douglas Freeman (Jake Gyllenhaal), who?s boss died in the bombing, witnesses this with increased skepticism as to El Ibrahimi?s guilt.
Meanwhile, El-Ibrahimi?s American wife, Isabella Fields El-Ibrahimi (Reese Witherspoon), is extremely worried when her husband fails to come home his conference. She goes to an old friend Alan Smith (Peter Sarsgaard) working as her senator?s aid, he tries to convince this senator (Alan Arkin) to pressure Head of Intelligence Corrine Whitman (Meryl Streep) to bring El-Ibrahimi home.
Meanwhile, the Abasi Fawal?s teenage daughter Fatima (Zineb Oukach) find?s herself in a relationship with a boy named Khalid (Moa Khouas), whose brother appears to have terrorist ties.
That?s a lot of characters and storylines to handle, and the film doesn?t quite juggle them perfectly. The film?s advertising suggests that the film centers around Reese Witherspoon?s character, this isn?t really true. Witherspoon really doesn?t have much more screen time than the rest of this large ensemble. There could probably be an interesting film that focused entirely on any one of these stories, but when they are all together it feels a bit uneven. For instance, the story about Fatima and Khalid worked pretty well and ended with a neat twist, but ultimately was not connected with the rest of this very well at all. It feels like another separate movie.
Some of the performances here work better than others. Streep is up to her usual standards, as is Alan Arkin. Omar Metwally also does a very good job with his physically demanding role. J. K. Simmons, famous for role on TV dramas like ?Law & Order? and ?Oz,? is also a very nice presence in his small role. Peter Sarsgaard isn?t as good as any of the above mentioned, but he isn?t really weak either, and neither are Zineb Oukach or Moa Khouas as the two young Arabs.
Reese Witherspoon however, finds herself overacting, a lot. In many ways she seems to be trying way too hard to get another Oscar. When she finds herself screaming at people in desperation it gets a bit laughable. Jake Gyllenhaal is in the odd position of being a bit too well cast here. His character generally comes off as naïve and confused, a character type he?s played a few too many times. If the character was played by someone who was cast against type this would have been more bearable, with Gyllenhaal it feels like a bit too much.
There has been a recent trend of ambitious films coming out of Hollywood with earnest messages about important issues. Rendition, in many ways looked like it would be an extreme version of this, that it would be a movie that would push its message at the audience in an absolutely invasive way. Is this the case with the movie? Well, sort of; your enjoyment of the movie will probably be directly proportional to how much you demand subtlety. The movie?s politics are in no way a mystery; it deals with political issues directly and sugarcoats nothing. I personally didn?t see this as a problem. Admittedly I agreed with the film?s politics before I entered the theater, and wasn?t looking at it with much skepticism.
That said, it isn?t as biased as it may appear. The movie does explore the arguments that defend the policy of extraordinary rendition and tempts the audience to agree with them. The film mentions that the policy was created under Clinton, and generally avoids other partisan issues. The movie?s ultimate message is that extraordinary rendition is a policy that denies people their human rights and that torture is cruel and unusual. This wasn?t something I really needed to see movie in order to learn, but that?s not a huge problem, even choir members liked to be preached to sometimes. But, again, if you are looking for a subtle and sophisticated delivery of this message you?re going to the wrong movie.
The movie generally worked well enough despite some definite flaws for most of its running time, but the narrative really falls apart in the last twenty minutes or so. The conclusion feels rushed and simplistic. The sub-plot with Fatima and Khalid proved itself to be tangential and unworthy of the screen time invested in it. There are a handful of loose ends, one of them particularly maddening, and the resolution generally felt anti-climactic.
The film was directed by Gavin Hood, director of the South African film Tsotsi, which won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language film in 2005 for which he gave a memorably enthusiastic acceptance speech. I wasn?t a huge fan of Tsotsi, it was a good film worth seeing, but I?m not sure I would have given it that Oscar. Still, he was a director that caught my eye. This film is a step down from Tsotsi, but I?m still interested in Hood. He seems to have a pretty decent grasp of the language of film. The technical aspects of this film are not overly noteworthy, but they work well for the film. The editing is particularly nice.
Rendition has an important message, but is that enough to make it worthy? No, not really, but this does have more to offer than that. The story is pretty good until the problematic ending, and the unneeded sub-plot works well enough despite its uselessness. The message is very clear and has already been pretty clear to anyone who?s read a newspaper lately. Some of the performances are a bit iffy as well. For the most part this is a thoroughly competent piece of work; it just doesn?t quite make it.

When F. Scott Fitzgerald said there were ?no second acts in American lives?, he clearly didn?t have the director Curtis Hanson. Hasnson, a director mainly known for a few populist thrillers, came out of nowhere to make one of the best movies of the late 90?s: L.A. Confidential. Hanson followed this success up with the also excellent Wonder Boys, then went on to make the Eminem vehicle 8 Mile a good three or four times better than it had any right to be. No one was quite ready to call him great, but he was definitely a director who could make very good movies. Hanson?s latest film Lucky You was in the unenviable position of opening against Spider-Man 3 after sitting on a shelf for well over half a year. Hanson?s film certainly deserved a better fate than that embarrassment, but at the same time there was a reason the film was held so long.
Eric Bana plays Huck Cheever, a Las Vegas poker player with a chip on his shoulder. Huck?s father L.C. Cheever (Robert Duvall), a major figure in professional poker tournaments, had abandoned Huck?s mother when Huck was still a child. Whenever Huck plays his father at poker he finds his emotions interfering with his game. Huck begins trying to save up the ten thousand dollars needed to enter the World Series of Poker when he meets a bar singer named Billie Offer (Drew Barrymore) who he becomes emotionally attracted to.
There are a lot of movies set in the world of Las Vegas gambling. Recent examples of the genre that come to mind are Wayne Kramer?s The Cooler, Richard Kwietniowski?s Owning Mahowny, and Paul Thomas Anderson?s Hard Eight. But few movies set in this world seem to be so singularly interested in the actual gambling. There is a love story here and a story about a father and son, but neither of these seem to be as interesting to Hanson as the ?sport? of Texas hold ?em poker.
The film does poker in a much more believable and realistic way than most films. It?s always been a pet peeve of mine to see the poor way that movies like the recent James Bond vehicle Casino Royale handled card games. Most movie poker games seem to be decided by a royal flush beating a straight flush. On the very few occasions when I?ve played poker I felt incredibly lucky whenever I got my hands on two pairs. Lucky You never falls into these traps, many games here are won with small pairs, and the one time an incredible hand occurs it is looked at as an extreme aberration.
Eric Bana is one of my personal favorite actors around today, he delivered great performances in Munich and Chopper, and when he was in below average movies like Troy and Hulk he usually ended up being the best part of them. Here he?s giving what I call a ?default performance?. It?s an unchallenging role in a contemporary film that basically works to establish what Bana is like in a normal film so we can appreciate him more when he?s really trying to disappear into a role. Robert Duvall is also a nice presence, but his is also a very unchallenging role. The performance of Drew Barrymore, however, is sub-par. I?ve come to not expect much from Barrymore, and she did not surprise me here.
Hanson does nothing poorly with the direction, but also nothing special. It is a fairly straightforward production and ultimately a fairly understated production. The cinematography works fairly well, and the movie isn?t over-edited. Hanson wisely chooses not to show any of the player?s hands except for Hucks, and there is a fair amount of suspense in the card games.
Huck Cheever is a somewhat interesting character, but he doesn?t have much to do here. The story arc is just too weak to really work. The love story is formulaic and feels like an afterthought, and there?s nothing in the father and son storyline we haven?t seen before. The story is ultimately a catalyst to explore this world of professional gambling. If this is a world you as the viewer have no interest in, this isn?t the movie for you. There is however enough interesting things about this world to entertain in a fairly moderate way. There?s nothing entirely bad about the movie, its success largely just depends on the viewer?s interest in Poker tournaments. Certainly worth a look if it?s on cable, possibly worth a rent if you have a great interest in Poker.

The term ?psychological thriller? is tossed around pretty lightly in this post Silence of the Lambs world. Most of these so called ?psychological thrillers? are really just generic thrillers that have a detective lead (usually played by Sandra Bollock) and a serial killer screwing with that protagonist?s head for some unexplained reason. The psychology is usually taken about as seriously as the archeology in the Indiana Jones films. William Friedkin?s new film, Bug, is not one of these faux psychological thrillers. The Psychology in Bug is complex and engrossing, unfortunately the ?thriller? part of the equation doesn?t deliver as well as the ?psychological? part.
The film revolves around Agnes White (Ashley Judd) a woman worn down from years of bad experiences. She?s has a cocaine habit that eats up any money she has, her abusive ex-husband torments her with prank phone calls, she lives in a cheap hotel room, and she?s tormented by memories of her kidnapped child. After a night of partying with her lesbian girlfriend R.C. (Lynn Collins) she runs into Peter Evans (Michael Shannon), a gulf war veteran who behaves oddly. Both characters are isolated and alone to a certain extent. Because they are both troubled outsiders, they form a romantic bond. Evans, who has an interest in conspiracy theories, begins noticing small insects crawling around the apartment. These bugs seem responsible for the rashes and sores that begin to emerge on the flesh of our two protagonists, what type of bugs these are less important to the story than where they came from.
Bug has had a troubled journey to the screen. When it was screened out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 2006 it received rave reviews from critics who called it a return to form for William Friedkin, director of such classics as The French Connection and The Exorcist. Unfortunately Lionsgate continued to delay the film?s public release in order to find a good time to market it. This wait seems futile now, as the film is inexplicably being released the same week as the Uber-Blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean: At World?s End, a release date sure to destroy any chance the film had at a box office victory.
The film is written by Tracy Letts, and is an adaptation of Letts own off-Broadway play of the same name. Because of its theatrical origins the film takes place almost entirely in one hotel room. This theatrical limitation actually works in the film?s favor, the single room setup makes for a perfectly claustrophobic setting for this story. The script is good but fragile, in the wrong hands it could completely fall apart; without excellent acting the script can?t sell itself. Luckily the acting here is rock solid. Michael Shannon reprises his role from the stage play, he clearly knows this material and has fine tuned his performance to near perfection. Ashley Judd is also very impressive in her role. The supporting actors are not as great as either of the leads, but they serve their roles effectively.
The movies first act is fairly slow, but this is deliberate, the film is building towards its final act. Unfortunately the final act is a let down of sorts. What happens to the lead characters is interesting, story wise it works, unfortunately the suspense and tension the film is obviously trying to achieve sort of falls flat. Part of the problem is that it becomes readily apparent what the truth of this situation is, and as such a lot of the suspense is lost. The final act is interesting, but it doesn?t really go anywhere until chilling last five minutes, its like the characters progressed to a certain point, then stayed at that point for a very long time, this wouldn?t be a problem if this final part were effectively scary, or at least suspenseful. Eventually one begins to wonder what payoff one was expecting from the slow first half.
Bug really is quality work, it has good dialogue, good acting, and it goes to an interesting place. Unfortunately it can?t really work as a thriller and that is its undoing. Still there is a lot to admire here. The movie is worth seeing, it?s a very respectful effort, but ultimately its just as imbalanced as all the faux psychological thrillers that lack serious psychology. It really makes one respect films that are able to effectively blend the two.

The Lookout is the first film directed by veteran screenwriter Scott Frank. Frank has done writing work on some really good films including Out of Sight and Minority Report. His directorial debut is based on his own original screenplay. The fact that it is an original screenplay is interesting as the film feels like it was based on a novel. The film doesn?t feel like it was based on a very good novel, but it does feel like a crime story more concerned with its characters than with crime.
The film centers on Chris Pratt (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a twenty-something dead at the core. It is revealed in the first scene that Pratt?s irresponsible driving lead to the deaths of two friends in a nasty accident. The accident left Pratt with brain damage and a deep guilt about his actions. Pratt has a distant relation with his family and lives with Lewis (Jeff Daniels), a blind friend who has a certain wisdom about the world. Lewis may be blind, but Pratt is the true handicapped person in the apartment, Pratt can barely tell the story of Goldilocks without help. Pratt holds a night job as a janitor at the local bank where he is visited every night by a friendly state trooper named Ted (Sergio Di Zio) whose wife is expecting a baby. Eventually Pratt begins to fall in with a crew of bank robbers hoping to use Pratt?s inside position at the bank to help a robbery.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt gives an admirable lead performance as Pratt. Most viewers will probably recognize Gordon-Levitt from the 90s sitcom ?Third Rock From the Sun,? since that show was cancelled in 2001 he?s been in a number of respectable but forgettable independent films like Brick and Mysterious Skin. Gordon-Levitt is completely inhabits this sad, lonely, and wounded person. Jeff Daniels also creates a likable character that is an interesting contrast to Pratt. Lewis is a very warm lovable figure, yet also very believable. The supporting cast isn?t as consistently good as the two leads, the bank robbing crew are particularly one note.
Chris Pratt is an interesting and sympathetic character. There are the makings of a good character study here, unfortunately the film decides to be a thriller rather than a slice of life, and the eventual event that Pratt is a lookout for is no where near as interesting as the character driven elements.
The movie is quite predictable, everything that happens in the second half are transparently set up in the beginning. Pratt is visited by a very friendly police officer whose pregnant wife is expecting to deliver soon, the cop visits the bank every night; can anyone NOT guess what?s going to happen to this guy? There are a lot of things like this, by the end you realize that almost every scene in the first half only existed to set up something in the second half.
Scott Frank?s direction is highly competent, but could use work. His obvious weakness is action, the visual continuity of the films main set piece completely breaks from the visual continuity of the rest of the film. The technical accomplishments of the rest of the film are never poor, but rarely impress enough to elevate one?s opinion about the film.
The Lookout is a noble effort that never really breaks out of a fairly mediocre mold. I wish Frank had more confidence in his character?s ability to entertain. Pratt the depressed soul is a lot more interesting to me than the mediocre heist sub-plot. The Lookout is a missed opportunity, but there is enough good in it to maybe be worth a rental.

The title of The Kingdom refers to the nation of Saudi Arabia, the largest country in the Middle East, a region we have all been slowly learning about. There are serious things going on in that area, a fact no one needs me to inform them about. There are many reasons to make movies about nations like Saudi Arabia, the Middle East conflict is the defining issue of our time and there are many positions to take. But is ?no position? an option? That?s the question that The Kingdom poses without trying to.
The film opens with a frightening act of terrorism; two Saudi men enter an area of Riyadh populated by Americans and begin a mass drive by shooting, but this is only a distraction, two bombs eventually go off killing hundreds of Americans including two FBI agents. Special Agent Ronald Fleury (Jamie Foxx) upon hearing this manages to persuade the Saudi government (without telling his superiors) to allow his team into the country?s border to investigate the crime. Also on his team are Grant Sykes (Chris Cooper), Janet Mayes (Jennifer Garner), and Adam Leavitt (Jason Bateman). In Saudi Arabia they are escorted by Colonel Faris Al Ghazi (Ashraf Barhom) who tries to help them despite some cultural differences.
The strong cast does a lot to keep this movie floating. Oscar winners Jamie Foxx and Chris Cooper live up to their award winning status and both are good here, neither are great but they do as much as they need to do with their fairly standard roles. Newcomer Ashraf Barhom is also quite good here, and Jeremy Piven has a fun turn in a small role. Jason Bateman and Jennifer Garner however, both seem out of place here. Bateman simply doesn?t feel right for this genre, and Garner is just generally poor.
Viewers who were offended by the mix of action adventure and real world tragedy in last year?s Blood Diamond should stay even further away from The Kingdom. The film has no real message in this film, there?s the occasional poignant moment, but there?s certainly no clear thesis in sight. I was going to say it played out like CSI: Riyadh, but a bunch of other critics beat me to it. There is a lot of procedural here, but the result of the investigation seems inevitable. In the last half hour the film devolves into an all out Hollywood action movie.
The action scenes are well shot, in a more appropriate environment I?d support them, they are just wrong for this story. People go to action movies for escapism, something no one gets from a story about Middle East terrorism. People go to more political ?issue-tainment? for smart insights into world affairs, something that?s absent from this action movie. It?s a movie that tries to have it both ways and ends up pleasing no one.
There have been reports that forty minutes were cut from The Kingdom, and this may have been part of the problem. One can really feel the participation of test audiences in the creation of the movie. It may be that whatever point the movie was trying to make was lost in this editing. The movie could also have benefitted from increased character development all around.
Peter Berg, director of Friday Night Lights and The Rundown is simply over his head with this material. He has no idea whether he wants to make a political thriller, procedural, or action film and has no new insight into the Middle East. It says a lot that The Wind That Shakes the Barley, a film set in 1920?s Ireland, has more to say about the American War on terror than this film set in modern Riyadh. There are better films about the Middle East and better action movies out there. The Kingdom is just good enough to hold your attention but ultimately amounts to nothing. Possibly worth a rental, the action sequence really is shot well, but otherwise quite missable.

Wes Anderson was one of the Wunderkinds that come along ever few years in the independent film scene. His films like Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, and The Royale Tenenbaums were wonderful breaths of fresh air. Anderson had a refreshing style that was both technically impressive and also light-hearted and fun. His films utilized dry humor perfectly, getting laughs without demanding them from every scene. Meanwhile his excellent, new wave inspired visuals took the viewer along for some wonderful rides. Anderson was delivering a unique mix of styles that was so unique from everything else his audiences were expecting. However, Anderson?s ride hit a bump in late 2004 when his forth film The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou received mixed to negative reviews. It seemed Anderson had suddenly jumped the shark, as it were. I however remain a defender of The Life Aquatic, it was not as good as his previous three works, but it was an enjoyable film that has grown on me the more I?ve seen it. Anderson is back in 2007 with his new film The Darjeeling Limited.
The film is about a trip three brothers take through India. Francis (Owen Wilson) is the eldest brother who had recently been in an accident leaving him with massive bandageing on his face. Peter (Adrian Brody), is married and his wife is pregnant back home, although he isn?t overly exited about the prospect of having a child. Jack (Jason Schwarzmen) has recently broken up with an unnamed girlfriend. These brothers have recently lost their father and are trying to take a spiritual journey in this foreign land, complete with laminated itineraries. Their ultimate destination is to meet up with their mother who has become a nun working at an orphanage.
I?ve always been a fan of Wes Anderson?s style, I even found The Life Aquatic quite enjoyable, especially after multiple viewings. Anderson?s visual styling is as strong as ever here; he uses a yellow color scheme that fits India perfectly. Anderson continues with his active moving camera and energetic editing.
The acting featured here is also very solid. Jason Schwarzmen delivers another unique and quirky performance as Jack, it?s consistently fun to watch his mannerisms throughout the movie. Owen Wilson is in his element, this isn?t much of a stretch for him, but he does his job well enough. Adrian Brody is new to the Wes Anderson troupe, and is a welcome addition to the cast.
As good as the visuals and acting is here, as a story the film has major problems. The characters here are not likable or interesting. These three brothers are not well established in the beginning of the movie. Many say they dislike exposition in movies, but in reality what they dislike is poorly done exposition, here we don?t even get that. There is a short film on the internet called Hotel Chevlier that acts as a prequel. I missed this short before seeing the movie and hoped that the needed exposition for the movie would be in it, but it isn?t, it gives some insights into one of the characters but The Darjeeling Limited remained poorly introduced. The development does not get better from their. I did not care about these shallow characters as I watched the film.
The film?s second major flaw is that it simply isn?t funny. Anderson obviously tends more toward dry quirky humor, but here he seems to avoid humor altogether. There were definitely a handful of chuckle inducing scenes here, especially a moment involving a purchase made by the Adrian Brody character, but these moments are few and far between. There were a lot more laughs in Anderson?s previous films, and his quirky style really just can?t sustain a purely dramatic story. Serious things happen here that really just fall flat because this style just isn?t meant to convey any sort of reality.
The film runs a lean 91 minutes, many would find this faster pace worthwhile, but I felt it would have benefited from more time to develop the characters and to simply allow more funny things to happen. Just when the movie seems to be going somewhere it ends.
Anderson does however continue to prove the supremacy of his classic rock knowledge. Anderson has consistently put together great soundtracks for his movies, here he brings to the table a handful of songs by The Kinks, and a great Rolling Stones track. The rest of the soundtrack consists of pre-existing scoring from Indian films, specifically the works of Satyajit Ray. These songs are perfectly integrated with the onscreen visuals and help the movie a lot.
Unfortunately, this killer soundtrack was not enough to save this film. I don?t want to come off as feeling too negatively about the movie, there are definitely a lot of good moments here, most of the individual scenes are quite good, they just never gel together to form a quality whole. It?s hard to actively dislike the film, it is after all fairly charming, but it does not live up to Anderson?s previous works. Then again that?s what I initially said about The Royal Tenenbaums, which after repeated viewings became my favorite Anderson movie to date. Maybe a similar 180 will occur after I give his new film a second chance, but until then I will have to remain underwhelmed by The Darjeeling Limited.

I always liked Richard Attenborough?s biopic about the life of Mohandas Gandhi, but I never loved it. It was a highly conventional film which ignored the complexities of history in favor of a wildly reverential look at its subject. Another problem I had with it was that it seemed odd to see British filmmakers taking it upon themselves to chronicle another countries hero for them. That?s why I was very interested to see what a movie about Gandhi made for and by Indians would be like. While the film is not a complete failure, it does give me a newfound respect Attenborough?s decision, because the Bollywood film style kind of proves itself incapable of the level of realist filmmaking that this story requires. There just seems to be something in the very blood of how this industry makes movies that leans toward artificiality and melodrama.

The film does not focus on Gandhi?s anti-colonial campaign or his politics in general, rather it is meant to be a look at his personal life, particularly in regards to his son Harilal Gandhi who strayed from the advice of his father and was often in the middle of fraud, and other unscrupulous activities. Gandhi himself is portrayed as an unsympathetic father who was often downright cold in his tough love approach.

The film?s biggest problem is Akshaye Khanna, who plays Harilal. His performance reminded me of an anecdote Danny Boyle told about casting the role of Jamal in Slumdog Millionaire. Boyle explained that he was forced to go outside of India in the casting for the simple reason that every male actor in India looked like a buff dancer rather than a real common person, and I think this is the casting problem that the filmmakers faced here. Akshaye Khanna seems very miscast, he doesn?t look like his father or anyone else likely to be in his situation in the 20s and 30s. His hair is always perfectly styled and he shows no sign of wear on his face. The situation is complicated further by the fact that he is well over 30, but still plays Harilal in scenes where he?s supposed to be about eighteen and looks way too old. Darshan Jariwala fares a little better in the role of Gandhi, but unfortunately he has a distractingly weird shaped head that?s on full display when he?s bald, this is a shallow complaint but it?s distracting nonetheless. Ben Kingsley will not be wanting of work any time soon.

The rest of the film basically suffers from its indecisiveness as to whether or not Gandhi is a jerk or not. I can see why they?d hesitate to depict him in a negative light, but the whole thing just comes off as soft and indecisive. Harilal himself is a generally frustrating character as he zig zags between whether or not he wants to get his act together, one scene he?s finally doing all right, the next back to being a disgrace.

The film generally does a good job at focusing on it?s subject, the personal life of the Gandhi family, until the last half hour when the film when frustratingly it quits focusing on Harilal and begins recounting the politics of Gandhi which it had smartly ignored throughout the rest of the film. This brings the central story to a screeching halt and the rest of the film just seems like a second rate version off the Attenborough film. This is not a horrible movie, but it is one that doesn?t know what it wants to be and which fails as a work of realist filmmaking. A nice curiosity, but nothing more.

The sniper is one of the most interesting warriors in the history of combat. More assassins then soldiers, they rely on elaborate camouflage and stealth to achieve a single kill. I particularly recall one day when I was playing the Xbox game Halo against a friend where he managed to pin me down by getting to a high place and shooting me in the head every time I tried to charge his position. Eventually I managed to hit him with a very well placed rocket shot and take his position. When he respawned he immediately picked up another sniper rifle again and tried to pin me down again, this wasn?t happening, but he kept picking up the sniper rifle. Bored by the repetitive direction the game was taking I asked him: ?why do you keep going for the sniper rifle?? He responded by saying ?I like sniper rifles; they encourage cheap-ass-ism.?
Indeed sniping is really cheap, and in general it?s pretty hard to put a sniper fight on the screen. The 1993 film Sniper probably disappointed many with its less then Schwarzenegger level body count, but it managed to surprise more discerning audiences by being smarter, better written, and better acted then the average Reagan/Bush era action movie. The new film Shooter has action that is fairly successful but has an awful, uninspired script that anyone who?s seen a thriller will be a mile ahead of.
Mark Wahlberg plays Bob Lee Swagger (no I?m not kidding) a retired marine sniper who has basically turned into a survivalist nut in the mountains after his partner was killed on a secret mission because the army pulled out rather then rescue them, proving once again the adage that you never want to share a bunker in a war movie with the guy who keeps a picture of his wife with him. He is visited by Danny Glover, a man in black type dude, who asks him to find out how to kill the president and report his findings so they?ll know how to stop an actual assassin who may come up with the same plan and kill the president at his next public appearance. As anyone who?s seen a shadowy government agency in a movie can tell, Swagger is being set up to be framed as the assassin. Swagger surprises them escapes, humiliating rookie FBI bystander Nick Memphis (another name I?m not making up) played by Michael Peña. Memphis eventually becomes obsessed with the assassination and begins to uncover a conspiracy. Meanwhile Swagger decides to drive all the way from Philadelphia to Kentucky on the off chance that his old partner?s widow (Kate Mara), who he?d never met in person, would be able and willing to dress wounds he received during the assassination. Swagger must then uncover the identitiy of the true assassin in order to restore his name.
Antoine Fuqua is one of many seemingly talented directors who seem to have no idea how to find an intelligent script. Shooter is a stupid and formulaic action movie pretending to be an intelligent political thriller. The Bourne series, which this film desperately wants to emulate, is an excellent example of how this type of espionage man on the run type film can work well and still be thoughtful and character driven. This film however seems aimed at the people who read Soldier of Fortune magazine; its view of governmental corruption and conspiracy theorizing would make Oliver Stone blush. Aside from the politics this is a run of the mill ?wrong man? formula.
Wahlberg?s acting seems to be on auto-pilot, there?s nothing wrong with it really, but nothing special either. Danny Glover and Ned Beatty are both fairly forgettable villains, and Michael Peña is fairly average. The real healingly bad performance comes from Kate Mara. In Mara?s defense, she is playing a poorly written role that serves no purpose in the story other then to provide a tacked on (and half assed) romance sub-plot, and to become a damsel in distress in the film?s pen-ultimate action scene. However she also has an absolutely horrible southern accent which brings the movie to a screeching halt whenever she?s on screen.
The action in Shooter does occasionally deliver. The film had the sense to go with an R-rating, which is important because it?s hard to show a sniper bullet hit without a decent blood splat. The action tries to look very real, but the things being done are very unrealistic. Case in point, in the opening scene we are shown a fairly realistic depiction of sniper tactics, the shooter is concealed by camouflage and relies on a spotter to tell him when to shoot, but later in the scene he shoots down a helicopter with a shot to the rotary blades, and act most videogames know is too stupid to be believable. Still, if you can get past the unreality, there are fairly enjoyable set pieces. These action scenes are why this film is somewhat worthwhile; the best of them are brutal and intense. The biggest of these, where Swagger and Memphis ambush an ambush at a country home serves as an excellent vehicle for some good shooting and at least three excellent explosions. Unfortunately this isn?t the finale of the film, as there are a handful of false endings before it does come to a close
Shooter is not good, but there are definitely movies made with greater incompetence. I wouldn?t recommend spending full price on this film, but it could be a decent way to kill two hours on a Saturday afternoon at matinee prices if there?s nothing else playing and you?re willing to overlook a lot in the name of escapism.

Like most film buffs I suffer from a unique problem known as stupid friends. Allright, my friends aren?t really stupid, but they have very suspect taste in movies, and they all beg me to sit though whatever retarded action movie they?ve just seen. After suffering through Wanted I decided I?d watch a couple more bad contemporary action movies from their cannon just to shut them up, which brought me to this. To the film?s credit, it has a good soundtrack and it doesn?t completely overuse slow motion, but that?s about where the compliments end. This is ridiculous, incoherent, and gratuitously violent. Clive Owen and Paul Giamotti do nothing to elevate the material and the occasional political messages about gun control are jumbled to the point where I?m not even sure of the film?s stance. The fact that the filmmakers seem self-aware is not an excuse, frankly I think that?s used as a crutch for bad filmmaking which doesn?t have the balls to take itself seriously.

Michael Bay is one of the most loved and hated filmmakers out of Hollywood. Critics have nothing but distain for the man, the only movie he?s ever made to gain a positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes was his sophomore effort The Rock. Audiences however seem to love him, only two of his movies have failed to break one hundred million at the box office and two of them have broken two hundred million, and those are just domestic numbers. Bay makes empty Hollywood action movies with cheesy scripts, terrible acting from otherwise solid actors, and excellent technical skill. As Jeanine Basinger once described him: ?[Bay is a] master of movement, light, color, and shape?and also of chaos, razzle-dazzle, and explosion.? However all this talent is wasted because the guy seems entirely oblivious to the fact that he?s always working with poor clichéd scripts and he couldn?t direct an actor if his life depended on it. Bay?s new film Transformers is in no way a change in pace for Bay. The film is essentially Armageddon with robots, its so full of clichés and bad writing that it often distracts the viewer from the fact that this movie bears a ridiculous concept that could only be taken seriously by a ten year old or Michael Bay.
I?ll admit I?m not this movie?s target audience, but it boggles the mind to determine what that audience is. The film is quite violent in that PG-13 kind of way and contains a number of not-so subtle sexual innuendos. If this is family viewing they might a well toss Armageddon into the pantheon of Disney classics. At the same time the film is far too silly, cartoonish, and cheesy as to insult the intelligence of any adult. I?ve never seen a single episode of the cartoon this is based on, and I?ve owned one of the toys the cartoon was created to market. Needless to say, I saw little to be exited about in this adaptation.
The film opens with a cheesy voice over that seems to have no place in a movie made in 2007. The voiceover is mostly cryptic and sets up that there is some sort of battle to come between good and evil alien forces that will occur on earth. This voiceover seemed to confirm my fears that this movie would be nothing more than cheesy 80?s children?s fare awkwardly packaged for 21st century teenagers. The film then cuts to Qatar, which is in the middle east according to the title card conveniently put on screen in case you?re too stupid to know where Qatar is. What then transpired was an action sequence so cool that it even had a cynic like me interested. A helicopter landed in a Qatar military base and preceded to ?transform? into a robot which, according to Wikipedia, is named Blackout. The Robot then uses a combination of very interesting weapons to decimate all the U.S. troops. This impressive combination of pyrotechnics and CGI was undeniably cool, and this excellence in visual effects is maintained throughout the entire film. However when the story begins so do the problems.
Bay?s first mistake was to place the film so largely from the perspective of teenagers who have no earthly business taking part in a major national security incident of this nature. The main character is Sam Witwicky (Shia LaBeouf), a suburban high school student who is finally being given a new car by his father. Forced to choose between a number of old and worn cars at a sleazy used car dealership, Sam chooses a classic Camaro, which he doesn?t know was a transforming alien robot that drove itself to the dealership in order to be picked out by Sam. The Autobots (heroic transforming robots) need Sam because his grandfather was an arctic explorer who discovered the frozen remains of the Decepticon (evil transforming robots) leader Megatron, who somehow imprinted some kind of homing device onto his glasses that detects the Allspark (which may as well be called ?The MacGuffin Machine?) even when its been relocated to Nevada, and since these glasses have been passed on to Sam finding him is essential to the fate of the world. Carefully consider that sentence and you will understand how hard screenwriters had to work to make a marketable teenager into the star of this movie. Sam is joined by Mikaela (Megan Fox), who severs no purpose to the plot other then to be hot. It turns out that Sam?s new Camaro is the Autobot Bumblebee, who communicates by picking convenient songs on the car radio to fit a situation. One wonders why the Autobots would send the one member of their team who is incapable of explaining the situation to Sam if he?s so important, a lot of screen time would have been cut if another autobot like Optimus Prime had just knocked on the kid?s door and said ?the glasses or your life!? One also wonders why the autobots and the U.S. military continues to waste their valuable time on this kid once the glasses (and with them the one minor tie he has to the story) are handed over.
Meanwhile the people who are actually supposed to be dealing with problems like this are worried about the strange threat that has presented itself in Qatar. The Secretary of Defense (Jon Voight), sends in the air force into Qatar to save the survivors of the opening sequence who are now being attacked by a scorpion robot. Among these survivors are Sergeants Lennox and Epps (Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson) two completely under-developed characters who are only slightly more important to the story than Mikaela. The air force learns through this encounter that humans do indeed possess some weapons that are effective against transformers, this is the full extent of the importance of this action sequence on the plot.
Meanwhile, in the most gratuitous sub-plot in this tangled mess of a story, three young hackers are brought in by the pentagon to deal with the threat these giant robots pose and the mysterious sounds that were recorded from the first attack. This sub-plot goes nowhere and is almost entirely abandoned in the last third of the movie.
The movie starts off all right, the skeleton of a passable disaster film can be seen in the build up while the robots are still have a certain mystery, before they come out in the open, start talking to humans, and the movie devolves into the cartoon it is. For the first half of the movie there is a lot of comedic relief which generate laughs with hit-or-miss success. It?s once the Autobots reveal themselves to Sam that the movie goes awry. In many ways I think the movie would have been better if it had eliminated the Autobots and played out as a fight between the evil Decepticons and the military. I think there would have been at least some dignity in that, because the Autobots are boring characters that are even more one note than the human characters. The Decepticons are also more interesting looking robots than the Autobots, but few of them are introduced until the final battle, and most them have little screentime even then. The Decepticon?s lack of screen time actually works in the movie?s favor since they don?t ware out their welcome like the good Autobots.
The performances in here range from awful to not-that-bad. The least embaracing performance comes from Shia LaBeouf. It?s a testament to how good LaBeouf is that he doesn?t embarace himself when delivering poor lines like when he ?introduces? special opps agents to the giant robot that is destroying their car ?Gentlemen... let me introduce you to my friend: Optimus Prime!? Jon Voight is a respected veteran actor who should have learned his lesson about playing authority figures in Michael Bay movies for his insanely bad turn as FDR in Pearl Harbor. As I?ve stated before the Mikaela character was written for no reason other than to bring a fine looking ass into the movie, and in turn Megan Fox was cast only for her fine ass, and in turn gives a howlingly bad performance. Why, in this age of internet porn, do people still pay theatrical prices to see hot looking women? Meagan Foxes performance destroys almost any of the remaining good qualities of all the scenes she?s in. The most bizarre performance however comes from John Turturro, an actor I once respected but who is more and more proving to be fairly one note. Turturro?s character is played almost entirely for laughs and is consistently cringe inducing. He?s completely out of place and stops the movie in its tracks.
The script is littered with loose ends and plot holes big enough to drive Megatron through. Long story short: The MacGuffian Machine (excuse me ?The Allspark?) ends up in a secret location under the Hoover Dam. How the government managed to move a robot and a cube the size of a house from the north pole to Nevada in complete secrecy and then build a dam over it is a mystery, but that?s beside the point. Once the glasses (AKA Macguffian 2) lead robots to the Hoover dam (instead of the North Pole where the glasses were actually imprinted) it is decided that the MacGuffian machine will be moved to Los Angeles and hidden. Why they are bringing this to a city where the ensuing battle almost certainly kills thousands of civilians when they could just as easily battle it out in the desert is beyond me. I guess they did it because Michael Bay didn?t think a desert fight would look cool enough. It also boggles the mind why they take the more than four hours trip to Los Angeles instead of the nearby Las Vegas is also a mystery. Also a mystery is how they managed to out run the Decepticons who have three aircraft that could have easily outflanked all of the good guys. These are just the plot holes in one five minute period of the movie, the number of holes in the entire movie may be countless.
Now I?ll get to the part of the movie that will attract most of its audience, the special effects. The effects are awesome, the robots look very real and fit into the universe extremely well. The movie may rival the Star Wars prequels for most effects shots. The action is also pretty respectable, there are explosions galore in this movie and some interesting twists on the concept of the car chase. The movie will deliver good eye candy for those willing to overlook the many, many, many problems the movie has on all other levels. I for one didn?t think that was enough.
Before you jump on me with the whole ?it?s a popcorn movie, it doesn?t have to be ?good?? argument, let me say this: I don?t see why popcorn movies need to only be about special effects. There have been too many good popcorn movies made in the last decade for that excuse to hold water for me. Take Steven Spielberg?s 2002 masterpiece Minority Report as the critic?s exhibit A. Minority Report had a lot of very exiting action scenes and beautiful special effects, more than enough eye candy to satisfy anyone looking for that, yet it was also intelligent, thoughtful, well made, well written, and powerful. Now look at exhibit B: The ever popular 1999 action film The Matrix. The Matrix had breathtaking action scenes, academy award winning visual effects, and also a brilliant script with enough philosophical insights to impress Harvard philosophy professor Cornel West. When movies like these are able to be solid all around movies while still being fun eye candy, I see no reason to give lackluster action films like Transformers a free pass.
I?ll begrudgingly give Transformers two stars for its solid visual effects, the handful of jokes that work, and Shia LaBeouf?s performance. I think I?m being more than generous in giving it that much.

Ghost Rider is a second tier comic book character. His fanbase is weak compared to the likes of Spider-Man, Batman, or even the X-Men. Created in the 70?s by writer Gary Friedrich, Ghost Rider an awesome looking character; as such they frequently try to revive him, but his titles usually stop selling as soon as people realize that his coolness is skin (or rather skull) deep. None of this means the film adaptation Ghost Rider is doomed to failure, another character of similar caliber, Blade, was turned into one of the better action series of recent memory.
The film is about motorcycle stuntman Johnny Blaze (Nicholas Cage). As a teenager Blaze made a deal with the Devil, literally. Blaze met Mephistopheles (Peter Fonda) in an old carnival and sold his soul to save his father from lung cancer. His father dies later in a motorcycle crash. Years later Blaze is a famous Evel Knievel-esque motorcycle stuntman. After a major stunt he get a chance to reunite with Roxanne Simpson, a girl he left when his father died. Before his dinner with Roxanne, Mephistopheles finally cashes in his contract. Blaze turns into the Ghost Rider, and at night when he?s around evil he turns into a flaming skeleton biker dude on a flaming motorcycle. Mephistopheles tasks Blaze with defeating Blackheart (Wes Bentley) son of Mephistopheles, a fallen angel who?s trying to replace Mephistopheles as the ruler of Hell. Once Blackheart is defeated Blaze will regain his soul.
Ghost Rider was directed by Mark Steven Johnson, Johnson had previously directed the over-bashed comic book movie Daredevil. Daredevil was able to create a very good tone and atmosphere, it was able to capture Frank Miller?s aesthetic and storyline, unfortunately it was marred by poor casting and a number of absolutely cringe-inducing out of place moments. Flawed as it was, there was definitely a good movie to be found somewhere in Daredevil, it could have been great in better hands, or completely without merit in worse hands.
Ghost Rider suffers much the same fate as Daredevil. Like Daredevil the film makes a number of good aesthetic choices; the film embraces a certain Texas mythos. The Ghost Rider is depicted as a modern day cowboy from Hell. The deal with the Devil is rightfully made at the crossroads. Casting the legendary Peter Fonda as Mephistopheles was a stroke of genius, it fits right in to this mythos. Additionally the Ghost Rider himself does look really cool, its hard not to make a motorcycle guy with a flaming skull for a head to not look cool.
Also like Daredevil, Ghost Rider is marred by a lot of cringe inducing moments, unfortunately there are so many of them that they stop feeling out of place. A scene where Blaze catches up with Roxanne on a freeway is just as bad as the terrible scene in Daredevil where Matt Murdock fights Elektra on a playground for no reason.
Nicholas Cage is pretty bad here, he?s doing the same old stock-Cage performance we?ve seen a million times. The Blaze charater is pretty odd, he comes across as a pretty stupid guy with a bunch of strange quirks. The film also has one of the worst villains in recent comic book movie history. Blackheart and his elemental-emo sidekicks are very lame and make the film?s stakes very low. The romantic sub-plot is poorly handled. Additionally the movie breaks a number of rules it establishes. The effects of how the damage Ghost Rider receive affects Blaze changes whenever the script needs it to.
Ghost Rider could have transcended its roots in a poor comic book but it didn?t. Instead this poor comic book has been turned into a poor movie by a director who really should probably not be working in this genre.

It?s clear that people are beginning to get sick of musical biopics, and for somewhat legitimate reasons. Ray and Walk the Line were both formulaic and predictable, but frankly I thought they were fairly well made, they weren?t revolutionary but they worked. However, people are tired of them and there are three projects this year trying to go new directions with this genre. The most high profile of these is probably the broad spoof Walk Hard with John C. Reilly playing the fictional musical legend Dewey Cox. The next highest profile of these projects is I?m Not There with six actors including Cate Blanchet playing Bob Dylan. I?ve yet to see either of these projects, but I can only hope that they will fare better than the third of these projects: the long, boring, and nearly incoherent Edith Piaf biopic La Vie En Rose.
I?ll admit that before I heard about this film I had no idea that a singer named Edith Piaf had ever existed. This didn?t help my viewing of the film as director Olivier Dahan has decided to structure this film with a constantly shifting chronology that shifts between different eras in Piaf?s life with seemingly no rhyme or reason. This decision isn?t entirely disorienting, I could sort of follow what?s going on, but it did really feel like an unnecessary burden for someone unfamiliar with the subject. The lack of chronology wouldn?t have been as big a problem if there weren?t large gaps in this mixed up timeline. The disease that eventually takes Piaf?s life is Liver cancer, but it would have been nice if the film had bothered to inform me of this, I had to look it up on Wikipedia. Admittedly, if this had been about a performer I had a better grasp on than Piaf I may not have had such a problem, but I don?t think it?s fair for a filmmaker to expect extensive pre-knowledge from his audience.
I would be more willing to overlook the disorientation that resulted from the film?s chronology if I thought there was some compelling reason for this aspect in the first place. This shifting timeline only seems to have been added to hide the fact that, deep down, this film is just as clichéd as Hollywood fare like Walk the Line. Edith falls victim to all the usual ?Behind the Music? problems like addictions, tragic relationships, and attempts to perform in the wake of failing health. Dahan seems to think he will fool audiences into thinking this is more artistic just by mixing up a number of scenes, seemingly at random, and I don?t buy it. The movie plays out like a poorly constructed greatest hits album that omits key tracks and places songs in a poorly selected order that doesn?t allow a listener to understand the artist?s progression.
Most of the praise for this film has focused on Marion Cotillard?s performance as Edith Piaf. I?m willing to take everyone?s word that Cortillard looks and sounds like Piaf, but frankly this type of imitation is not enough to impress me anymore. This is the same trick I?ve seen Jamie Foxx, Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Helen Mirren, and Forest Whitaker pull in various biopics during the last couple years and it?s really wearing thin. It is simply going to take more than impersonation abilities to impress me at this point and Cotilliard?s performance does not deliver the goods. We see Cotilliard as Piaf overreact to a lot of stuff over the course of the movie, the main way Piaf seems to react to everything that ever happens to her is to yell a lot and cry a lot. Admittedly, Cotilliard does manage to convincingly age a lot over the course of the film, and her performance may have worked a lot better if it had been allowed to develop naturally rather than be all over the map because of Dahan?s pretentious editing. But still this is a performance that does not live up to the hype.
Visually the film works fairly well. The film?s cinematography looks quite nice and the camera movements are fluid but unobtrusive. The editing within individual scenes is also quite well done. The supporting cast is also very good; Cotilliard is surrounded by a number of talented actors and actresses to play off of.
The film did nothing to convince me that Piaf was a great singer. I remember going into both Ray and Walk the Line with very little knowledge or understanding about their contributions to music and walked out embarrassed that I hadn?t shown Ray Charles and Johnny Cash the respect they deserved. La Vie En Rose provided no such education for me; I left the film with no desire to hear any more from Edith Piaf. The film does not even provide any particularly memorable performance scenes. Cotilliard does not do any of her own singing like Phoenix in Walk the Line, which wouldn?t have been a problem if the lip-synching and sound mix had been as good as it was in Ray, but it isn?t. Every song in the movie sounds studio perfect, even when Piaf is singing drunk on a street, and the voice coming out of Cotilliard?s mouth feels quite disconnected.
La Vie En Rose is a pretentious mess of a film that pretends to be original when it?s really just more of the same. I do think musical biopics badly need to turn a new leaf, but this film does little more than try to give it a facelift. Dahan?s experiment failed miserably and left us with a mess of a film which I grew tired of quickly into its two hour and twenty minute running time.
*1/2 out of four

[Those interested in seeing the film on DVD should be advised that the Riegon 1 DVD from HBO Home Video has a very poor transfer with terrible black levels]

Whoever came up with the idea of mixing Jerry Bruckheimer Films and Walt Disney Pictures must be very rich. By mixing the kid-friendly colorful imagery and juvenile humor of a Disney film with the noise and violence of a Bruckheimer film has earned the franchise more than 1.7 billion dollars. The mix worked in spite of itself the first time, and it still managed to be passable escapism the second time despite some major flaws. However this new installment is proof that the series has indeed lost any steam it once had.
The movie picks up from where the second installment of the series, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man?s Chest, left off. Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) has been transported to a strange surreal purgatory land and the rest of the Pirates gang is trying to save him . The first stop in their quest is Shanghi to meet with the pirate lord Captain Sao Feng to get charts they need to navigate the purgatory land Jack is trapped in. Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) needs Jack?s boat to save his father, Elizabeth Swann needs Jack?s presence at a secret meeting of pirate lords to plan a defense against the oncoming East India Companies campaign against piracy, and Barbossa needs Jack?s boat in order to? uhh? wasn?t he a bad guy?
Many have complained that the plot is to complicated, this isn?t entirely true, the plot isn?t complicated it?s convoluted. Deep down the plot is actually quite simple; the confusion is simply the result of messy screenwriting. The screenwriting was just as messy as in the previous installments, but they had the advantage of not having heaps of junk storylines to build off of, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was an original movie that started from nothing. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man?s Chest was not the first installment but it was able to start a separate original story. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World?s End however has the unfavorable position of being a continuation of a movie that, despite its entertainment value, went nowhere fast. This third installment also has the problem of being released less than a full year after the second movie, that?s less than a third of the amout of breathing room that Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man?s Chest had between itself and the original Pirates.
Is the movie a mess? Yes. But it also fails in a number of ways that the previous installments had moderate success at. The real fun of the first two movies was in exploring this fantasy world and seeing new and interesting elements within it. These new things were generally accompanied by very good production design. The world of the first two installments was filled with elements of pirate-lore that had been Disney-fied by a very good design team. However, it seems like they?ve run out of pirate-lore to adapt. For example, its unclear what the name of the surreal purgatory Jack Sparrow? At times its called simply: The Land of the Dead. At other times its called Davy Jones? Locker, which makes no sense as that name was already used as the name of the chest that contained Davy Jones? (Bill Nighy) heart in the second movie. The fact that they recycled this plot is emblematic of the problem here, this surreal purgatory was never part of pirate-lore and they didn?t have anything to name it. Later in the movie the Calypso, originally a figure in Greek mythology, is introduced. What did this mythological figure ever have to do with pirate lore? Nothing, but they needed someone to create a whirlpool for the final battle.
Besides a lapse of creativity, this film just doesn?t work as well. Most of the jokes fall flat here. There is way too much lame slapstick humor here. The viewers also begin to predict visual jokes before they happen. Many of the jokes here are performed by an almost supernaturally intelligent monkey and parrot; both of these annoying animals are the result of blatant pandering to young audience members. Another group of characters that have been tacked on to pander to the least common denominator are the bumbling crew of the Black Pearl. This Troupe of idiots is responsible for most of the aforementioned predictable slapstick. The final battle is also a disappointment as what is built up to be a major battle between two large armadas descends into yet another battle between two ships, this time the two ships are descending into a whirlpool, but that does very little to change the dynamics of the battle.
This is not to say the movie is devoid of positive qualities. There is a conference between the pirate lords about two thirds in that is pretty fun, and not just because of the much anticipated Keith Richards cameo. Chow Yun-Fat also adds a nice new element despite limited screen time. The somber opening also adds a nice sense of menace behind the East India Company. The film also doesn?t drag nearly as much as a 167 minute movie with very little substance should.
These Pirates of the Caribbean movies are the film equivalent of cotton candy. Like cotton candy, they completely lack substance, but you don?t mind because they are a very sweet treat. But try eating three balls of cotton candy in a row, the second or third helping will stop being sweet and start making you sick.

"WTF!": that's what I was saying during most sections of Richard Kelly's sophmore effort Southland Tales. I had heard that this movie was pretty crazy, but i had no idea that it would be as completely batshit insane as it was. It's like Kelly had a couple of sophomoric ideas about the cultural and political state of the world and decided to make an utterly incoherent narrative set in an alternate time line science fiction universe. What has transpired in this universe I do not begin to understand, the film mostly seemed like a bunch of absolutely bizarre scenes put together with the most minimal of logical connection. Among the oddities thrown at the audience:

A cast that sounds like it was deliberately assembled to not be taken seriously, including the "talents" of: The Rock, Justin Timberlake, Seann William Scott, Sarah Michelle Gellar, and Mandy Moore.

An opening scene recounting an alternate version of the last three years in an inelegant way via a computer display.

A voice over which is trying desperately to explain the story, but which really just makes the sillyness of the whole affair more obvious, especially considering we almost never learn anything about the character giving it.

A part where that horrible narration describes the neo-marxist movement by saying "The Neo Marxists took their philosophy from the German philosopher Karl Marx"

A drug induced psychedelic musical number with Justin Timberlake singing "All These Things That I've Done" by "The Killers"

A scene where a deranged woman demands to literally suck The Rock's dick at gunpoint, a scene that reminded me of the movie Bofinger where they'd have actors walk up to Eddie Murphy on the street and read off strange lines like "you prefer alien love."

Villains that are from straight out of a comic book, one of them is dressed like the private school teacher from hell, one looks exactly like george W. Bush, and one sounds suspiciously like a Ferengi.

A political message that has seemingly no respect for any type of political ideology and none of it's own.

A complete misuse of "Wave of Mutilation" by the Pixies

Title cards splitting the movie into three chapters but starting them at chapter four for some crazy reason.

A very bad Paris Hilton parody

and much more.

None of this seems to be a confusing like a puzzle to be solved, it just seems like an incoherent mess, there are no legitimate clues and no type of realism or even logic to ground it. By the ending, which involves a levitating van and a rocketlauncher, it seems clear that Richard Kelly is either A. Insane or B. trying to see how far he can go without someone calling bullshit.

I swear I really tried to get this thing for the first hour or so but it became increasingly clear that all I could do is sit back and see how weird a movie Kelly could get away with spending twenty million dollars on. There's a 160 version of it floating around that debuted at Cannes (do they even bother to watch the movies they screen anymore?). I hope for Kelly's sake that that version is better. Truthfully, I'd rather watch an ambitious train wreak than something that's really bland, but they don't come more wrecked than this.

Late in the summer of 2007, a fourth sequel to the 1988 classic Die Hard was released. Earlier in the year I was excited to see the franchise make a comeback; after all, 80?s action movies are a real guilty pleasure of mine. However, I began to be worried when I heard Len Wiseman was chosen to direct. This filmmaker who brought us such in-essential cinema as Underworld Evolution was hardly my idea of a perfect director for a Die Hard film. Then it was revealed that Justin Long (of ?I?m a Mac? fame) was chosen to co-star I really became nervous, and the insane title of Live Free or Die Hard didn?t ease my tensions.
The straw that broke the camel?s back however was the revelation that the film would receive a PG-13 rating and that John McClane?s famous line would be obscured. This was all the proof I needed to know that this film would be a massive sell-out, I firmly decided to boycott the film during its theatrical release and wrote an angry commentary on my blog about it. What was really infuriating was the generally accepting pass it received from a number of filmgoers who seemed way to forgiving of this film?s obvious sellout. Finally, after someong online said the unrated cut was ?fucktacular? I decided to rent that version on DVD. To my shock, I found that I was not only right about each and every one of my concerns, but that they were only the beginning of this movie?s problems.
It?s been twelve years since the last Die Hard film, 1995?s imperfect but fun Die Hard with a Vengeance, and John McClane (Bruce Willis) seems to finally be having a fairly normal police career. That is until he receives a call from his chief telling him to escort a computer hacker (Justin Long) to Washington D.C. Upon arriving at this hackers apartment he is greeted with an all out attack by a group of assassins. McClane soon learns that this hacker is a target because he recently wrote a code that is about to be used to create all out havoc across the eastern seaboard because an evil hacker (Timothy Olyphant) wants revenge against the government.
With McClane having to escort an unwilling sidekick, a large rather than enclosed stomping ground, and a villain trying to act like a terrorist only to distract authorities from a heist; it is clear that this entry was modeled after Die Hard With a Vengeance rather than the original or its sequel Die Hard 2: Die Harder. While the third film in the series was able to generate a compelling entry by subverting the formula; that trick only works once. The second time this trick feels less like subversion and more like abandonment.
None of what made Die Hard a classic is present here at all. None of John McClane?s attitude is present here, he never even feels overly surprised or angry about his predicament. Rather Bruce Willis is completely phoning it in here and mostly looks bored throughout. Additionally, even on the ?unrated cut? this movie feels really tame. The violence is still almost bloodless and even when a villain falls into a meat-grinder there is very little gory goodness. When compared to even the relatively tame third installment (which had a throat slitting villainess, a man split in half by a wire, and a really violent gunfight in an elevator), this film simply doesn?t deliver on the intense action fans have come to expect. Also the swearing is still very restrained, yes there are a handful of f-bombs now but none of them are very well delivered, in fact they feel a little bit like outtakes.
This film has bland and uninteresting dialogue, poor editing, and an extremely forgettable villain. But the real black hole at the center of this film is Justin Long. This is an even bigger problem than I thought he would be. I knew long would be annoying, but I had hoped he would also be fun to hate, unfortunately he?s bland and just plain annoying. Additionally Long has absolutely no chemistry with Bruce Willis.
This is a ridiculous film with cartoonish action scenes. There is a particular moment involving a Harrier Jet that was so ridiculous that all I could do was roll my eyes. The film has no idea how computers work and frequently has people hacking simply by typing on a keyboard without so much as touching a mouse. Also laughable was a scene where the film?s hacker villain talks to his henchmen in English while they communicate back in a foreign language subtitled and both parties seem to understand the other. I?d be able to suspend my disbelief if the henchmen had been wookies, but not for Europeans.
Live Free or Die Hard is an embarrassment to a once great series of action movies. Even in its ?unrated cut? this is a lame and boring film. Those who made it should be ashamed by the way they blatantly sold out for this production.

Hor When it was announced that Dimension films was planning a remake of John Carpenter?s 1979 slasher classic Halloween, I among many others just sighed at the folly of the enterprise. The original Halloween was one of the most influential horror movies of all time. The movie still holds up today; aside from some 70?s style clothing, hairstyles, and slang one would hardly realize it was old. The original is still watched annually by me every October 31st, I didn?t need a new Halloween and I was ready to miss the remake when it hit theaters. Suddenly though I was struck with a ray of hope, Rob Zombie was going to be sitting in the director?s chair. Rob is a director who has had a certain integrity and creativity during his horror movie career, I didn?t see why he would be making this if it were the debacle I had envisioned. Unfortunately, Rob Zombie has completely disappointed me, the remake of Halloween is just as bad as I feared.
The film begins in 1989 where a young Michael Myers (Daeg Faerch) is a troubled youth living is a deeply dysfunctional redneck family. His father (William Forsythe) is clearly abusive, and his loving mother (Played by Rob?s wife Sheri Moon Zombie) is a stripper. Michael finally snaps and murders a school bully, his father, his sister Judith (Hanna Hall), and her boyfriend. Following this quadruple homicide Michael is put into a maximum security psychiatric ward. Michael?s mother commits suicide, leaving behind a baby girl. Psychologist Samuel Loomis (Malcolm McDowell) tries to work on Michael for seventeen years without any success. The adult, and mysteriously buff, Myers (Tyler Mane) naturally escapes from prison seeking blood.
Rob Zombie (real name: Robert Cummings) began his entertainment career in music, as the lead singer of the groove metal band White Zombie. Zombie, who had been interested it kitch horror movies since a child, brought a sense of macabre theatricality to his music, especially in is live performances and music videos. In 2003 Zombie expanded his work into film directing with The House of 1000 Corpses, a movie that ultimately failed but had its moments. There was promise in Corpses, but I was completely unprepared for how good its sequel The Devil?s Rejects was. Rejects was a rollicking good time of violent kitch, not a true horror movie, but a violent tribute to everything Zombie seems to love. Rejects was actually a movie that owed a lot to Quentin Tarentino of all people. The film actually did the same thing Tarentino does: borrow from a whole lot of other movies the director loves and mix them interestingly into an original story. Rejects wasn?t for everyone, but I thought it was one of the most enjoyable movies of its genre in a long time.
The Devil?s Rejects is the one thing that convinced me this remake would be worthwhile. Zombie seemed to know what he was doing, the casting of Malcolm McDowell as Dr. Loomis seemed perfect. I defended Zombie even when it was announced he was going to be revealing additional back-story about Myers, a move many (correctly) thought would de-mystify the character. Unfortunately my initial instincts about this project were correct, a remake of Halloween has proven to be complete