The Films of 2008 Ranked

Politicians are always talking about family values, whatever that really means. There are dozens of movies about the supposed strength of families, about parents losing all control to protect children, about families coming together in desperate situations. Of course most of this is nonsense, when the chips are down blood usually isn?t as thick as most of these movies will have you believe. Sometimes, there are going to be people you dislike, and happening to have the same parents as them isn?t always going to change that. Rachel Getting Married is not a movie about ?family values,? it isn?t idealized and it isn?t pretty. It is, however, an incredibly honest movie; one that I think anyone can relate to on some level.

Despite the title, the film?s central character is a woman name Kym (Anne Hathaway). As the film begins Kym is leaving a rehab facility, seemingly for the first time in a while. She?s going to be with her family for a week or so in order to attend her sister?s wedding. Her sister Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt) seems excited to see her at first, so does her father Paul (Bill Irwin). But Kym seems to start wearing out her welcome real quick, it becomes increasingly clear that the family holds more animosity toward Kym then they let on because of all the things she put them through while she was a drug addict. As the weekend goes on the tensions continue to rise, and one begins to wonder if this family is ever going to come back together.

One has to keep in mind, that this is a film that?s very much about its characters and the way they interact, it is less story driven than most films. This is a film about an aftermath, about people living with the consequences of things that happened before the movie has started. The plot description I?ve given is probably frustratingly vague; it had to be because Rachel Getting Married can potentially be a hard film to talk about without spoiling the experience. A big part of why the film works so well is the way it slowly lets the audience in on this family?s troubled history over the course of the film, but not discussing some of this material makes it hard to really discuss the characters, and their various perspectives and motives. I?m definitely not going to give anything away, but I will tell you that the film?s first act is not what it appears. Jenny Lumet?s screenplay drops a bombshell on the audience about a third of the way into the movie which changes everything, forces the audience to rethink all the preceding scenes and fully clarifies everything that?s been going on between the characters. This is not a plot twist of the M. Night Shyamalan kind, it doesn?t change the plot, but rather it changes things on a personal level, and it changes the audience?s perception of this family?s dynamic.

The film was directed by Jonathan Demme, who?s probably best known as the filmmaker who brought us The Silence of the Lambs. That Oscar winning film is not particularly representative of Demme?s body of work; his heart seems to be in independent filmmaking and in the world of low budget documentaries. Demme is a filmmaker who seems to have a ?one for them and one for me? mentality, making studio thrillers like The Truth About Charlie and The Manchurian Candidate (2004) between documentaries like The Agronomist and concert films like Talking Heads: Stop Making Sense and Neil Young: Heart of Gold. Rachel Getting Married is clearly one for the independent side of his cannon.

The film is shot entirely on handheld digital cameras and I?m sure this was done for stylistic rather than budgetary reasons. The film looks almost like a home movie, albeit one that is made very professionally, and this gives the viewer a subliminal sense that they are like one of the people in the crowd attending the wedding. Bear in mind though, that this is an exercise in narrative Cinéma vérité, not mockumentary. The camera is only supposed to look handheld, and one is not meant to think any actual character is filming everything. The visual style is reminiscent of the Dogme 95 films that were going on in the last decade, except without the strict ?rules? or the general whiff of pretension surrounding that movement.

Anne Hathaway was an actress who I hadn?t had much exposure to until now. Aside from her relatively small role in Brokeback Mountain, I hadn?t seen a single one of her movies. This performance, however, was a revelation; I?ll definitely be watching her work more closely from now on. In the film Hathaway almost has to play two roles, as both the scarred Kym who has a profound sense of guilt about her past behavior, and the public Kym who uses sarcasm as a façade to block her more vulnerable side. Rosemarie DeWitt also has a lot of work here; her character is just as complex as Kym in that she is torn about her feelings toward her sister. Bill Irwin has a smaller role than either of them, but he?s also important and he?s also really good in the role.

The film also excels at a form of acting that isn?t often appreciated: extras. The whole movie is filled with bit or non-speaking parts that are vital to the film?s success. Frequently the film requires the whole wedding party to perform at the same time in order to create a mood. There?s a good example of this early on when the family and friends of the betrothed are going around and giving a toast to the couple, each giving appropriate tributes to the two. There?s a really nice jovial feeling in the room, then Kym stands up and instead of focusing strictly on the soon to be wed couple she starts giving an update of her own condition. Quickly the mood in the room changes and awkward looks come over all the extras, the sense of discomfort is palpable. This type of wide raging ensemble work is a big part of what makes this movie work. The film?s excellent ensemble, vérité style, and down to earth dialogue bring an amazing degree of reality to the whole movie. The whole thing really does feel like a real wedding, it hasn?t been Hollywooded up at all.

The film?s trailer is clearly trying to make this look like the next Juno or Little Miss Sunshine, but that?s wishful thinking on the studio?s part, this is probably not going to cross over into the public as easily as those two did and it?s not really that similar to either of them. Kym does have a somewhat Juno like attitude every once in a while, but that?s only 10% of the time, and it?s very clearly a defense mechanism rather than her real personality. It?s even less like Little Miss Sunshine, in fact the two movie are almost exact opposites; LMS is about a family that seems dysfunctional but comes together when the chips are down, while Rachel Getting Married is about a family that seems perfectly cordial but which actually has deep tensions. Instead I?d liken it to last year?s independent hit Once, except without the whimsy.

Rachel Getting Married is an amazing piece of work, one of Jonathan Demme?s absolute best. There?s something almost voyeuristic in how the film works, the whole affair feels so real that the viewer really thinks he?s wandered into the wedding preparations for a family you don?t really know, but soon will. There are no easy answers here, the film knows that these people?s problems aren?t going to be solved over the course of a mere weekend, and by the end you wonder if they?ll ever be solved. The movie is ultimately about forgiveness, or lack thereof. All of the characters need to find out whether they are truly willing to forgive Kym for her past, most of all herself.

This year the comic book movie has really gone off the deep end with four superhero adaptations being released within three months with a non-comic book superhero movie thrown in for good measure. Many thought the first of these comic book movies, Iron Man, was one of the best movies ever in its genre. I was less impressed by Favreu?s film than many people seemed to be, it was good but also felt mostly by the numbers to me, especially when compared to Spider-man 2 and to a greater extent Batman Begins, which I thought was a much greater film than Iron Man ever dreamt to be. Now that the long awaited sequel to Batman Begins has come out I feel vindicated, this is a movie that puts Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk to shame.

The film is set a few years after Batman Begins and Batman (Christian Bale) has become a major presence in Gotham city. Between the two movies in the franchise Gotham has come to take on Batman as a controversial symbol for justice, among those who have been inspired by the dark knight?s crusade is Gotham?s new District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart). Dent has launched a very successful campaign against organized crime. On a more personal level Dent has begun dating Bruce Wayne?s childhood friend Rachel Dawes (Maggie Gyllenhaal). But Dent isn?t the only one who?s been inspired by Batman, a deranged lunatic known only as The Joker (Heath Ledger) has emerged who stands opposed to everything Batman is fighting for. The Joker is an anarchist, someone with a very low opinion of humanity, someone who ?just wants to see the world burn.? The Gotham underworld, who have become desperate, hire The Joker to kill batman. In order to do this The Joker starts murdering people and declares that he won?t stop until Batman has been unmasked.

The Batman film franchise started really strong with Tim Burton?s 1989 Batman, which to my mind is the very best pre-millennial superhero movie. Burton went a little too far with the sequel, but Batman Returns seems like a masterpiece compared to what was to come when studio hack Joel Schumacher took over the series. The less said about Batman Forever and Batman & Robin the better, let?s just say the series was in dire need of new blood. That blood came in the form of Christopher Nolan, director of a great movie called Memento. What he made was a brilliant recreation of the Batman series with Batman Begins, a film that took the Batman mythology and respectfully rewrote it. The secret of that film?s success was that it grounded the film in reality, but not through a cheesy method like turning it into a mockumentary or setting it outside of a comic book world. What it did was make Gotham feel like a real city, a world thought out from the street level up. It really examined the psychology of someone like Bruce Wayne and had the courage to explore it.

While Batman Begins was all about? well, Batman Beginning; this sequel is all about the consequences of Batman?s emergence. The film deals with the real effect someone like Batman would have on a major city both good and bad. On one hand people are fearful of him and the official policy of the city?s police is to arrest him on sight. Also the threat he poses to organized crime helped lead to the emergence of The Joker. But on the other hand his influence also created legitimate heroes like Harvey Dent and the emergence of good men like Lieutenant Gordon who could do nothing because of the corruption that pervaded over the city?s police.

David Goyar, Christopher Nolan and his co-writer brother Jonathan Nolan clearly take what they?re doing very seriously and one can see their respect, dedication, and thoughtfulness in the film?s excellent script. Like in the previous movie this film is narrativelly, psychologically, and thematically very well thought out all while accommodating the expectations of a Hollywood action movie without making it feel obligatory. The dialogue, especially The Joker?s lines, are very sharp while still naturalistic and believable within the context of a comic book movie.

Christopher Nolan?s direction is every bit as good as his writing and the film further solidify?s my confidence in Nolan?s great talent. The visuals here are really good, amazing cinematography by Wally Pfister and great editing by Lee Smith. More importantly this has one of the best blends of visual effects and reality I?ve ever seen. Unlike many similar movies, the effects here aren?t focused on creating fully CGI characters, Batman is actually a person in an elaborate costume and The Joker is simply made using makeup. Instead CGI is expertly blended into the texture of the film?s practical effects to a point where I can hardly tell what is real and what isn?t.

Christian Bale is one of the best actor?s working today, his ability to completely transform himself into a role in a movie like The Machinist or Rescue Dawn is truly amazing. The main brunt of his acting doesn?t occur while he?s wearing his suit but when he?s portraying Bruce Wayne, in these scenes he?s closer to channeling the homicidal yuppie he played in American Psycho. When Bruce Wayne is in public he?s a one-dimensional character, as he should be, that?s what he?s trying to make himself look like to the citizens of Gotham. It?s when he?s with others aware of his second life like Alfred or Lucious Fox when he opens up and truly becomes a complex character.

Like in Batman Begins this has a lot of really stellar actors in its supporting roles. Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine are back in their respective roles of Alfred and Fox. The great but not often seen Gary Oldman is also back as Lieutenant Gordon, who has an even bigger part here than before. Maggie Gyllenhaal is here in place of Katie Holmes as Rachel Dawes. I thought Holmes was unfairly criticized in the first film, I didn?t agree with the decision to recast, but Maggie Gyllenhaal is just as good in the role. Aaron Eckhart has also joined the cast as Harvey Dent, the most high profile D.A. I?ve ever heard of. Eckhart feels exactly like a slick talking politician and he?s also great at portraying Dent?s darker side.

Of course the performance that has everyone talking is the late Heath Ledger?s portrayal of The Joker. Ledger?s tragic death opened the door wide open for hyperbolic raves about his last completed performance. I resisted all the hype about his work here only to realize that he?s just as good as everyone?s been saying he was. Ledger?s take on The Joker is said to blow away Jack Nicholson?s work as the same character in Tim Burton?s 1989 Batman film. But, this isn?t really a fair comparison; the Burton Batman films weren?t about making batman real, they were films that really embraced being comic books brought to life. Jack Nicholson did everything he was asked to do for his role, his Joker was a lot more true to what the character was like through most of the comic books up to that point. Ledger?s Joker on the other hand is a reinvented creation; like a serial killer, a monster, a terrorist.

This joker hardly ever laughs and never seems to smile outside of the scars going up the sides of his face. He?s simply someone who is amused by wreaking elaborately planned havoc on innocent people out of sheer insanity and anarchism. Put simply he?s a scary psychotic killer, someone with no remorse or regrets and seemingly no past or future. Ledger take this creation and brings it to life in an amazing way, this is easily the best screen villain since Anton Chigurh and Ledger?s work will be remembered for decades to come. There?s another villain that emerges toward the end of the film, and people familiar with the comic incarnation of a major character here won?t be surprised by who it is. This character emergence is very important thematically to the story, but I must say this is one of the few elements of the movie that are a bit iffy. I couldn?t help but think this should have been built up a little beforehand and I didn?t love how this sub-plot ended.

Many are pointing out that this is a very dark film, and this is true but only to a certain degree. Those looking for a lighthearted romp should look elsewhere, but on the other hand this is a superhero movie, not Se7en. There are scene?s in here that are darker in nature than what?s likely ever been included in a 180 million dollar movie, but deep down on a thematic level this isn?t as dark as it looks. The movie does show very low levels of human life, but it also deals with very noble examples of human courage and goodness. The movie?s ultimate message is not one of nihilism but of hope.

Of course if you?re just looking for some good action scenes you won?t be disappointed either. In the film you?ll be treated to some spectacular stunts, some very well designed action set pieces, a clever opening bank heist, and numerous very good explosions. The real standout though is an amazing car chase involving a semi truck, a SWAT van, a helicopter, the new bat mobile, and a motorcycle. It?s like they took both the car chases in Terminator 2 and combined them into one superchase that ends with an awesome stunt and I don?t even know whether it?s real or CGI. That chase is almost too good, it almost gets to a point where the film has trouble topping itself. For instance The Joker?s climactic scheme isn?t much more interesting or brilliant than his last three acts of evil insanity.

The Dark Knight is above all a triumph; it took everything great about Batman Begins and took it further. This isn?t just a great blockbuster, It?s a blockbuster that will shove the low expectations of anyone who claimed to love Transformers in their easily impressed faces. This is a movie that raises the bar for large budget filmmaking and proves that these movies shouldn?t be judged like competitors I the Special Olympics. Of course Batman Begins raised the bar just as high three years ago and it was quickly lowered by widespread cinematic amnesia, hopefully the standard this movie sets will not be forgotten. It does have a few imperfections, in fact I might love Batman Begins just a little bit more, but this is the best big budget movie I?ve seen in a very long time.

Within the hardcore film lover community, the cinema of Romania has recently come to great prominence. With films like The Death of Mr. Lazarescu and 12:08 to Bucharest there is a real ?new wave? feeling coming from the country. This has been something of a running self deprecating joke among film buffs who would find themselves saying things like ?why would I want to see Rambo, when I could be seeing that Romanian abortion movie?? The ?Romanian Abortion movie is of course 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days, if not the best, certainly the most recognized Romanian film thus far.
Set in 1980s communist Romania, the film revolves around a College aged girl Otilia Mihartescu (Anamaria Marinca), whose dorm roommate, Gabriela Dragut (Laura Vasiliu), has recently become victim to an unwanted pregnancy and wants an abortion. The procedure is illegal in this era of Romanian history and in order to terminate the pregnancy they must illicit the service of a black market abortionist named Mr. Bebe (Vlad Ivanov).
The message of the movie never comes out and reveals itself, but it is obvious nonetheless: that when abortion is illegal it will still occur regularly but with greater danger, with even less dignity for the child, all while unnecessarily criminalizing young girls. This is the same basic message that was on display in the great 2004 Mike Leigh film Vera Drake which focused on the well meaning woman who provided abortions through a method she doesn?t know is extremely dangerous.
The Cristian Mungiu?s visual style is a big part of what makes the film special. The film?s style recalls Cristi Puiu?s work in The Death of Mr. Lazarescu but does it better. Most large portions of the film are done handheld or with a stedi-cam, but one is never supposed to associate it with documentary filmmaking. The cinematography is clean and free of film grain, but seems washed out as if all the color has been removed from this world. Mungiu often features long uninterrupted shots, but they are not long shots that call attention to themselves like the Dunkirk sequence of Atonement, or even Alfonso Curon?s work in Children of Men. The real purpose of these long shots seems more related to avoidance of breaking continuity, to avoid the artifice of such a technique. As such, one subconsciously begins to feel like a third friend in the room with these two girls following them during their ordeal.
Anamaria Marinca is the backbone of the film, and has to subtly convey her distress. Note a particular scene where she is forced to attend a party as her friend is in a dire position. Both her character and the audience are focused on the how Gabriela is doing, but are forced to deal with this intolerable family get together. Marinca in this scene needs to convey deep thought while trying to keep a straight face at this party. Laura Vasiliu also has the challenge of portraying a character that is desperate and often behaves irrationally. There is a real panic to her behavior and a deep vulnerability that needs to be conveyed.
Special consideration should be given to Vlad Ivanov who must play the black market abortionist. This abortionist is nothing like the empathetic Vera Drake, he?s simply in it for the money. He?s like a drug dealer with medical skills, he does not care about these women, in fact he clearly looks down on both of them and has no hesitation to verbally abuse them both. He is not an antagonist; in fact he?s technically the only ally these girls have. Mr. Bebe is clearly a bad person, but he only has power because society has made his kind necessary. Ivanov?s performance is really strong, and the movie really becomes great when he arrive in the film.
In the May of 2007 4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days won the Palm D?or at the Cannes Film Festival, as is usual with winners at Cannes, we?re only now seeing it nearly a year later. This wait is largely because of studios trying to wait for the Academy to honor their films with a Best Foreign Language film Oscar, an honor which more often than not never comes. This of course bites the academy in the ass when the films get released and build a following only after they are no longer eligible. This of course wasn?t even nominated because the geriatric nominating committee wasn?t cutting edge enough to understand a Romanian Abortion movie. What Foreign film distributors need to understand is that the foreign category, like any category, is largely dependent on buzz, and you?re not going to get much of it if your film hasn?t graced American shores. Reforming the category should be simple: ditch the nominating committee and require American distribution for eligibility the same way they do for other categories.
Before I saw this film I was really skeptical about this so called ?Romanian New Wave,? but now I see the potential. I can definitely see why this would break away from the pack and get the recognition it has. The film tackles a controversial topic with serious restraint and maturity. The film has absolutely no mainstream appeal, but it is a great piece of cinema that should be seen by everyone who has an interest in the art house hardcore.

If someone ever writes a book called ?Things That Aren?t Respectable? they?d probably have to devote an entire chapter to professional wrestling. I?ve had nothing but contempt for this ?sport? and I?m not sure if I?ve ever seen a wrestling match in its entirety because of it. But like all entertainment mediums, the world of wrestling is filled with genuine human interest stories about wash-ups, has-beens, and those who never made it. Those who dream of being in the WWE may have some strange priorities but are their failures any less tragic then the failures of those who aspire to be boxers, actors, or rock stars? The new Darren Aronofsky film, The Wrestler, is about one of these sob stories; it?s a film that does what I thought was impossible, it made me care about a pro-wrestler.



The film is a character study about Randy "The Ram" Robinson (Mickey Rourke), who was a major star of pro wrestling during the 80s but who has fallen a long long way since. Now Robinson, in his 50s, is living in a trailer park but still wrestling in low rent matches in seedy New Jersey venues. His one escape outside of the wrestling ring is the time he spends at a local strip club where he?s befriended a lap dancer named Cassidy (Marisa Tomei). After a really hard match, Robinson collapses in the locker room. Doctors tell him he?s had a heart attack and that another match could easily kill him. This puts Robinson at an impasse in life, he doesn?t have any real job skills and he yearns for the rush of the fight. Cassidy suggests he contact his estranged daughter (Evan Rachel Wood), but he doesn?t know if she?s going to be interested in talking to him. Meanwhile, Robinson?s fight promoter is trying to arrange a rematch between Robinson and his old ?rival? the Ayatollah, a fight Robinson is tempted to agree to, but which could jeopardize his very life.



The Wrestler is a film that comes at an important point in the career of its director, Darren Aronofsky. Aronofsky came to prominence with the visually aggressive independent films Pi and Requiem For a Dream; but his last film, The Fountain, was seen by many as a misfire. That film was an incredibly ambitious sci-fi epic, but its small scale new age aesthetic ultimately felt cold and pretentious. With The Wrestler Aronofsky has made the perfect film to recover from an ambitious failure like that: a small scale, down to earth independent film with a minimum of the camera tricks that were beginning to define his style. This is a film about people, not themes or technical devices, and it?s a lot warmer than anything he?s made before. And yet, the film still explores the themes that Aronofsky has explored throughout his body of work: Addiction, obsession, and the pursuit of unattainable dreams.



Aronofsky shoots the wrestling matches here a lot better than the WWE does. Like all the best boxing films the camera here goes into the ring, which allows for something a lot more intense than a filmed live event. Some of this footage is surprisingly graphic, particularly on ?hardcore? match in which the wrestlers fight using weapons like broken glass, barbed wire, and most disgustingly a staple gun. The fact that fights like this are going on is very disturbing to me, but it?s all fake right? Well it is and it isn?t. The fights are certainly fixed; the wrestlers decide who will win ahead of time. They are also probably doing everything they can to soften they?re blows, but there are dangers, especially in these small venues that clearly don?t have the same safety standards as the WWE. For instance, during the film?s first fight Randy cuts himself on the forehead with a razor in order to achieve a blood effect after a blow from his opponent. Then there?s the aforementioned ?hardcore? fight; all those painful implements are used to hurt the fighters, for real, in a scene that far more vicious and disturbing than anything I?ve seen in a slasher film.



The violence in that ?hardcore? scene is not gratuitous; in fact it plays directly into the character?s health problems, his motivation, and a Jesus analogy that runs through the film. Shortly before that fight the Marisa Tomei character recommends Mel Gibson?s high budget snuff film The Passion of the Christ, pointing out something along the lines of ?they throw everything they have at him but he never gave up.? Of course that bloody violence in that ?hardcore? fight is not unlike the floggings which are in Mel Gibson?s film, but to what end? The point of the biblical passion story is that Jesus suffered for a greater purpose; to save souls or something (my lack of religious inclination is probably showing). Randy ?The Ram? Robinson certainly isn?t trying to save anyone?s soul; he?s suffering to entertain whatever sadistic audience apparently wants to see this.



At least that?s what he thinks he?s doing, but his real motivation is something darker, something he never admits to himself: he?s addicted, not to narcotics (though he does have a drug problem), but to fame. His addiction to fame is every bit as self destructive as the addictions Aronofsky depicted in Requiem for a Dream. This addiction has left Randy every bit as obsessed as the protagonist of Aronofsky?s debut film Pi, but he?s not obsessed with math, he?s obsessed with recapturing his glory days. This obsession has ruined his family life, led him to abuse the more conventional drug of steroids, and most importantly kept him wrestling long past his prime even after there are major health reproductions for doing so.



The film?s soundtrack will probably be remembered for the self titled Bruce Springsteen folk song that?s already getting Oscar buzz, and that?s a pretty decent thing to be remembered for, but it isn?t what most of the soundtrack is like. The majority of the film?s music comes from bands like Quiet Riot, Ratt, and Mötley Crüe; that?s right 80s hair metal. This is not cool music but it?s been chosen wisely for this film because it?s exactly the kind of thing Randy would listen to. First of all this music is gaudy, commercial, unsophisticated and very masculine; all things that are also emblematic of pro-wrestling. Secondly, the fact that Randy listens to it fits in perfectly with the character?s obsession with recapturing the 80s. This is a man who didn?t grow out of this music with everyone else, in fact he gives an entire speech about how ?that pussy Cobain? ruined it. His beef isn?t really with Kurt Cobain, it?s with a culture that moved on and left him behind.



Of course Randy isn?t the only one expounding on the virtues of Ratt in that scene, he finds an unlikely musical ally in Marrisa Tomei?s character. Tomei is about twelve years younger than Rourke, more importantly she?s a very attractive stripper while he?s an ?old broken down piece of meat.? At first it would seem to strain credibility that she would want to pursue a relationship with him, but it quickly becomes apparent that the two characters are really quite similar. Cassidy is not a stripper simply because Aronofsky wants to shoot topless scenes. She?s a stripper because that is in many ways the female equivalent of Randy?s profession. Both are performers in seedy and disreputable stage venues, both put their bodies on display as part of that pursuit, and both are getting a bit too old of their chosen vocation. The difference is that Tomei?s character is not addicted to her job; unlike Randy she hasn?t tied her identity to her onstage character, which is why she ultimately doesn?t understand how strong the urges driving Randy are.



I?m not overly familiar with the work Mickey Rourke did before he left Hollywood to pursue a boxing career in the early 90s. I?d seen him in the Robert Rodriguez? film Sin City where he played likable lug of a character, but there wasn?t much there to prepare me for his work here. Much has already been written about Mickey Rourke?s amazing performance, and I?m going to try not to dwell on it too much simply because the film deserves better than to be overshadowed by its star. Suffice it to say that Rourke really does live up to most of the hype that surrounds his work. This isn?t a theatrical performance like Daniel Day-Lewis? work in last year?s There Will Be Blood; rather it is a performance that builds a character through careful strokes and subtle decisions. Interestingly, Rourke has much the same challenge that Anne Hathaway has in this year?s Rachel Getting Married. Both actors have character who are not particularly lovable and warm people, both do things that make want to dislike them, and yet you sort of have to be with them in their suffering.



The rest of the cast is solid, but occasionally seems to be rushing to catch up with Rourke. Tomei is not in quite the same position to show off her acting chops as some of her co-stars, she doesn?t have a big scene and her character doesn?t have as many broad characteristics as Rourkes. Still, through her work she maintains a certain dignity throughout the film that transcends what could have easily been a conventional ?hooker with a heart of gold? side character. Evan Rachel Wood has a smaller role than Tomei?s but it requires a lot more out of her. She has a scene where she really needs to react to her father in a very direct, very angry way which is broader than anything her co-stars are asked to do. This could be seen as easier or more challenging depending on your perspective. Either way she handles the scene as well as can be expected and more or less acquits herself.



Darren Aronofsky?s visual style here is very different form his earlier films, which were a lot more technical. There are no fast cuts or obvious visual motifs in The Wrestler, its visual style is a lot more conventional and at first glance it doesn?t look like a Darren Aronofsky film at all. This is for the best; firstly because Aronofsky?s old style had probably been taken as far as it needed to beforehand and secondly because this slice of life filmmaking better fits this film which tackles its themes in more subtle ways. It was a wise reinvention; I was worried about Aronofsky after the failure of The Fountain, but this film solidifies his place among the best auteurs of his generation.



Do not be scared away by the film?s wrestling subject matter, that?s not really what it?s about. If you dismiss the film for this you?ll be missing out on one of the best character studies we?ve seen in a long time. This is a very smart, but modest drama, one whose greatness sneaks up on you only after you?ve left the theater. It?s a film that deserves to be taken seriously and it?s much more than a showcase for Mickey Rourke?s acting comeback.

Review pertains to complete roadshow presentation

There are few figures in history as controversial as Ernesto ?Che? Guevara. To many people his face is the representation of revolution and radical left wing reform, others see him as nothing more than a communist who helped build a regime that is under American embargo to this day. Alberto Korda?s photo of the revolutionary has been emblazed on millions of T-shirts, I don?t think the people wearing these shirts are interested in celebrating communism anymore than someone wearing a Thomas Jafferson shirt is celebrating slavery; rather they are celebrating Guevara as a well intentioned visionary. I?ve never owned one of these shirts, nor have I seen anyone wearing one since the Clinton administration, but I can respect the sentiment. I?m not sure if Steven Soderbergh has ever owned one of these shirts, but I do know that Soderbergh?s new film about the Argentine revolutionary makes for compelling drama.

When I first heard about this project it was being sold as a pair of separate films called The Argentine and Guerrilla. This changed when it was delivered to the Cannes film festival as one long film simply titled Che. After it received mixed festival reviews, the film has been on a distribution roller coaster; the studio that finally picked it up, IFC films, still doesn?t seem dedicated to the idea of releasing it as either one film or two and they still aren?t sure whether they want to call the parts by their original names or as simply Part 1 and Part 2. Luckily, they had enough confidence in the project to release the film in my market in the deluxe roadshow presentation, and this is the format I saw it in.

The film ran four hours and twenty three minutes and featured a fifteen minute intermission as well as an overture and an entr'acte. The ticket cost me fifteen dollars, but that?s exactly what this theater would normally charge for two films, so I guess that?s fair enough. The film even came with a full color program, which is a nice bonus but has little in it except for the movie?s credits (which, in the roadshow tradition, are omitted from the film?s print). An essay or two would have gone a long way to increase the value of this souvenir, but it was essentially free so I can?t complain.

The two movie in one concept has been experimented with recently by filmmakers like Quentin Tarentino and Clint Eastwood to various degrees of success. Tarentino?s Kill Bill series, despite its chronological jumping, was undoubtedly one story split into two (the fact that one had more action than the other was incidental). On the other end of the spectrum, the Iwo Jima films that Clint Eastwood released in 2006 were entirely separate films linked only by setting and mood. The Che films lay somewhere between the two. Though they?re being released as one film, I think they would both hold up as standalone films. Though the Che character in the second act is certainly the same character seen in the first act, the two films take place in fairly disconnected periods in his life.

The first part focuses almost entirely on the Cuban revolution from beginning to end. There are maybe five minutes of screen time dedicated to pre-invasion material. The film also flashes forward to Guevara?s 1964 diplomatic trip to New York, but this ultimately acts less as a part of the story than as a medium to listen to his philosophies and better understand his motivations. The second part the film is about Guevara?s guerrilla war in Bolivia and is even more strictly focused. The fact that each film maintains such laser-sighted focus on its respective war gives the film a certain purity, but can also be one of it?s a double edged sword. We only see Guevara when he?s at war, never at peace. The film skips over the five year period between the two wars, including his marriage to Aleida March which is briefly mentioned only in dialogue (March is a seen as a member of his army in part one). Because we see almost nothing of Guevara?s personal life, or doing much of anything other than Guerrilla warfare, he?s not a particularly relatable character and the viewer is oddly distanced from him. I might go so far as to say this is a pair of war films first and a biopic second, especially during part one.

Part of why Guevara seems like such a distant character throughout the film is that Soderbergh maintains an incredible objectivity throughout the film. He has an almost fly on the wall approach to the events of the revolution and the viewer is left to judge Guevara by his own actions and words. Soderbergh almost never editorializes and hardly a line is spent on exposition. Of course the most controversial period in Guevara?s life, his running of the Cabaña Fortress, is completely skipped over and Soderbergh does not get too deep into the implications of Guevara?s ideology. But all this isn?t really the point; I don?t think Soderbergh cares if Cuba or Boliva are turned into ?communist paradises.? What?s important is that Guevara himself deeply believes in his own cause and will sacrifice himself to see it through. If nothing else, he?s a man of good intentions, he never sought to profit from his actions and he never seems interested in gaining power. He?s a man who genuinely believes that what he?s doing is right for the people of Latin America, though he was probably naïve to trust the likes of Fidel Castro.

The first part appears to have used the brunt of the film?s budget, and it features significantly more combat sequences. There are a number of skirmishes seen, but this isn?t Saving Private Ryan. The fighting is small scale and guerrilla-style, very reminiscent of Gillo Pontecorvo?s The Battle of Algiers and Ken Loach?s The Wind That Shakes the Barley. Soderbergh does not dwell on action sequences; in fact Guevara spends significantly more time recruiting peasants and training soldiers than he does throwing around Molotov cocktails. It all leads up to the battle of Santa Clara, which is about twenty well crafted minutes of urban combat. While this is hardly mainstream filmmaking, it is exciting and relatively accessible.

The second part is more personal, smaller in scale, slower, and likely to be more divisive. During this half the film?s aspect ratio narrows down from 2.35:1 to 1.85:1, and this makes sense given the significantly altered tones of the first two halve. While Part One was a triumphant victory, part two is about Guevara?s tragic downfall in the jungles of Bolivia. As such the second part is, appropriately, sort of a downer and the tone does nothing to alleviate the tragedy. There?s very little action in this second part, and while part one was hardly a laugh riot it was a lot more entertaining about this. I?m not sure if this movie really benefits from the roadshow presentation in that the film gets slower and less entertaining after around three and a half hours of sitting in a movie theater. But the movie does rebound somewhere around the sixth act (second film, third act), there?s a great battle in the jungle and the final moments of Guevara?s life are really well handled. This half actually reminded me of Gus Van Sant?s recent output in that you?re slowly watching someone going toward an inevitable outcome, yet you stick with him in sickness and in health.

One lens through which this second half can be viewed is an allegorical one; because, ironicly, Guevara acts a lot more like George W. Bush than Barack Obama. At one point in Part One, Guevara reads off a Tolstoy quote which establishes that victory in battle is largely related to the motivation of the forces. In Cuba he was able to motivate the people in a big way; they were interested in and receptive to communism. That was the right place to spread his ideology, Boliva wasn?t. Guevara assumes that the Bolivian people will accept any ideology for the simple fact that they are oppressed, but that doesn?t turn out to be the case, they mostly just see him as a dangerous troublemaker. Bush made the same mistake when he assumed that the Iraqi people would view Americans as liberators and accept democracy simply because Saddam Hussein was a dictator. I don?t want to oversell this angle, it probably wasn?t intentional and it?s not a perfect allegory (the CIA were probably just as big a factor in his defeat), but this is there for people like me to see.

One complaint I could have is that, while Guevara himself is fairly distant from the viewer, everyone else is completely unimportant. Historical figures certainly show up, they?re almost named one by one in an early scene; they?re all basically gears in Guevara?s army. Even Fidel Castro almost seems like a minor side character. All this is magnified further in Part Two which, according to the program, had 92 credited roles but a whole lot of them might as well be credited as Guerrilla Soldier #12. All in all, Guevara is the character at the center of the whole thing, and he?s the only character played by a name actor: Benicio del Toro. Del Toro is great throughout the film, he doesn?t go through some kind of wild Oscar-bait transformation, rather he does everything he can to sell the audience on Guevara?s passion. It seems like he?s doing everything he can to capture that look that?s in Guevara?s eyes in that famous photograph.

On the film?s technical side, it?s straight up awesome. That ?Peter Andrews? cinematography is really good here. I said before that the film reminded me of The Wind That Shakes the Barely, and that?s largely because of the way Soderbergh places the small scale fighting amidst green Cuban scenery (though it had to be shot in Mexico, stupid embargo). ?Andrews? shoots this scenery beautifully while maintaining a gritty look, it?s a tough balancing act but it?s pulled off really well. In contrast, the flash-forwards are filmed in high contrast black and white, it?s grainy and looks like a picture from an old television broadcast. Perhaps through this contrast of vivid color and grainy monochrome Soderbergh is trying to suggest that Guevara was more alive during the revolution then he was while building Castro?s Cuba. The cinematography in Part 2 is quite different, the camerawork is more handheld and the colors are more desaturated. There?s no balance between beautifully shot scenery and gritty warfare in this half, it?s all gritty. Aurally, both films really shine, gunshots really pop and explosions are crisp; it really feels like you?re in a war. The film also avoids any musical manipulation, the latin music here is good but not intended to do anything other than augment the setting.

With Che, Soderbergh has presented us with a paradox. He?s given us two war films about the same person, neither of them is as great without the other, yet watching them back to back also has its drawbacks. As a history of a man?s life, the project is incomplete in spite of its extreme length, which leads me to believe that these truly are two film in spite of the roadshow presentation. The roadshow was a nice convenience for me as it meant I didn?t have to make two trips, but if you can only see them as separate films it?s probably just as well. Either way this isn?t a project to be missed, it?s the best war film since Letters From Iwo Jima and the most daring biopic since I?m Not There. It?s also Soderbergh?s best work since Traffic and in spite of its flaws this is still one of the best movies released this year.

It?s no secret that Woody Allen is a remarkably prolific director; it?s something that Stanley Kubrick used to envy him for. It?s almost a law of physics that there will be a Woody Allen movie for every calendar year and he shows no signs of slowing down. When people think of Woody Allen movies they usually think of his ?nebbish? character going around New York, dealing with relationships, and having intellectual discussions about life, then making fun of said conversations. The movies are still pretty much the same in this decade except Allen?s mostly been staying behind the camera and he?s now working in Europe instead of New York. The tour of Europe that Allen started with Match Point four years ago has mostly been good for him and his newest film, Vicky Christina Barcelona, will probably be remembered not only as the height of his European period; in fact it?s the best movie he?s made in at least fifteen years.

The film follows two young American women as they spend a summer in Barcelona. The first, Vicky (Rebecca Hall), is a straight-laced grad student who?s engaged to a promising businessman (Chris Messina) back home. The other is Cristiana (Scarlet Johansson), a self-styled free spirit who aspires to be an artist, though she has not chosen a medium to express herself with. When the two attend an art expedition they meet a somewhat eccentric Spanish artist named Juan Antonio (Javier Bardem) who within minutes of meeting them invites them out to spend a weekend at his estate in Oviedo with the clear intention of bedding them. Vicky is not impressed but Cristina is intrigued by the notion of spontaneously running with an artist, Cristina wins out and they take the side trip. Over the course of the weekend Vicky and Juan form a bond, but it is with Cristina that he eventually starts a long term relationship. This relationship works quite well, but then his crazy ex-wife María Elena (Penélope Cruz) enters the picture which may or may not throw a monkey wrench into the gears of their relationship.

Most Woody Allen movies use satire to explore greater human themes; the themes explored in Vicky Christina Barcelona are youthful soul searching, culture clashes, and self destructive relationships. The first of these themes seems to be a surprising topic to be brought up by a director over seventy, but it?s also one that rings true. Vicky is a character who has her whole life mapped out in a very dispassionate but sensible way, but she lacks a certain passion. Cristina is the opposite, she?s spontaneous and open minded but in many ways naïve and without direction. Both are using this Barcelona trip as a means to find themselves and both will try to live with the other?s philosophy. The catch is, no one really ?finds? themselves by running around Eurpoe, hell most people never ?find? themselves, and Allen knows that the live of these two women aren?t going to be redefined over the course of a summer. That?s not to say that either are static characters, but their development is evolutionary rather than revolutionary.

Woody Allen really opened up opportunities for himself when he realized that there were plenty of pretentious intellectuals living outside of New York who were just as rife for satire. The Javier Bardem and Penelope Cruz characters seem like the prototypical southern Europeans: they ooze confidence, open-mindedness, creativity, and fiery passion. The catch is, most real Spaniards don?t really cat like this, and they probably represent the whole of their culture about as accurately as Woody Allen?s persona represents New York. This type of heightened behavior is used to point out the differences between the two American leads and the people who enter their lives; it?s also the source of most of the movie?s comedy. Bardem?s frank sexual advances are quite funny, especially in the way the two women react to it, and Cruz?s wild anger is another comical element.

The third and probably most important theme is that of self destructive relationships. Life with these two crazy artists is interesting, wild, and fun, but I it doesn?t make for a stable relationship and it?s no way to live for more than a few months. The Bardem and Cruz characters are people who thrive on pure passion, but long term relationships need a lot more than that. The relationships Vicky and Cristina form with Juan Antonio are satisfying but there?s no future in them and they?ll eventually end up like Juan Antonio?s highly destructive relationship with María Elena. In this way the film reminded me in many ways of Bernardo Bertolucci?s The Dreamers, another film about an American who spends a long stretch of time with a pair of crazy hyper-sexual Europeans only to ultimately be driven away back to the comfort of a simpler life.

However, this is no love letter to monogamous stability either; the couple who are hosting Vicky and Cristina in Barcelona are held up late in the film as an example of a safe and stable relationship that is devoid of passion, and ultimately leading toward boredom and infidelity. It would seem that this is the kind of future in Vicky?s future if she marries the fiancé she choose because he was merely nice and was pleasant and had career prospects. So in many ways our heroines face a catch-22, the catch-22 faced by everyone looking for love: choosing passion can be messy and choosing stability denies people of true happiness. This is in many ways a fairly cynical take on relationships hidden beneath the surface of this seemingly light hearted film, which is a big part of why the film works so well, there?s real complexity to be found in a movie that plays as quality adult entertainment.

A major factor in the film?s success lays in the cast; this is an excellent example of a small cast where everyone seems to have just the right chemistry. Scarlett Johansson is an actress that can be hit or miss, but she works quite well here. Cristina is a character whose naiveté could have easily been very annoying, but Johansson manages to avoid this by avoiding any girlishness in the character, instead of coming off like a schoolgirl she manages to come off as a genuine free-spirit. Rebecca Hall, has the straight-man role here which would seem to be easier but it isn?t, she has some of the more thankless Woody Allen dialogue to deal with and she pulls it off quite well. Javier Bardem has a role that?s the exact opposite of his Oscar winning role in No Country For Old Men, in that film he had to be an emotionless sociopath but here he needs to be a wildly passionate artist. Of the four leads he?s probably the least noteworthy, but he still holds up his end of the ensemble. The real standout is Penelope Cruz, an actress who?s had a lot of trouble with English language roles in the past. Cruz does have a lot of Spanish dialogue here, but most of her lines are in English (at least when Juan Antonio has his way), and she pulls it off by letting her character not have the best grasp of the language either. This is the same trick Jackie Chan learned to use in the Rush Hour films, he built his character as someone who doesn?t speak perfect English and his accent seemed a lot more natural. That?s hardly the most important thing about her work here, she has a character that has even more raw passion than Juan Antonio, yet she keeps from looking like a complete lunatic while shouting at people.

It was recently announced that Woody Allen will be returning to New York to film his next project, presumably ending his European era. When I first heard this it seemed like a good sign, but now that I?ve seen this I realize how the change of location has helped freshen up Allen?s style. Woody Allen is such a prolific guy that it?s way too easy to take his work for granted, it?s easy to compare his latest movies to other Woody Allen movies and have them fall short when they should be comparing them to other romantic comedies playing now, with those standards it becomes clear just how much of a treasure the guy is. But his work here is above and beyond the call of duty even for Woody Allen, it lives up not only to other romantic comedy but also up to some of Allen?s own best work.

After sixteen years, David Fincher still has one of the best track records in all of cinema. With Fight Club and Se7en he more than secured his place in film history, and even his lesser works like The Game and Panic Room are extremely well made and more or less do what they set out to do. I had some issues with last year?s Zodiac (mostly the fault of the script), but it was so amazingly ambitious and well directed that it still managed to secure a place on my year end top ten list. In fact Fincher?s latest film, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, shows that Zodiac was the beginning of a great new page in the filmmaker?s career.

The opens with a rather unusual prologue about a blind clockmaker who, out of grief for his son killed in the First World War, built a clock for the New Orleans train station that would tick backwards in (metaphorical) hope that time would go backwards and bring back the fallen soldiers. The day the war ends, Benjamin Button (Brad Pitt) is born ?under unusual circumstances.? The baby boy is a brittle infant with wrinkled skin, a doctor who examines him say that if he didn?t know any better he would say the child was an old man at the end of his years. The boy?s father panics and abandons him on the steps of a nursing home, there he?s found and raised by an orderly named Queenie (Taraji P. Henson) who tells everyone that Benjamin is her nephew. It soon becomes apparent that as Benjamin grows in age, mentality and in stature, he is in fact becoming younger in appearance and vitality. Somewhere around age ten he meets Daisy (played by Elle Fanning at this age and later by Cate Blanchett) the daughter of one of the home?s inhabitants. They?re technically the same age but Benjamin looks significantly older then she does, all the same they fall in love at first sight. The film continues to chronicle Benjamin Button?s life from birth to death.

The film, loosely based on an obscure short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, seems to be a meditation on the phrase ?youth is wasted on the young.? I?ve never been a fan of that phrase; the comeback I?ve developed to it is ?retirement is wasted on the old.? Button?s childhood is never that great, he?s forced to live in a retirement home and is never really able to play with other children except Daisy. His old age isn?t great either, it would seem that the grass isn?t very green on either side of that fence. The truly good days of Benjamin?s life are the portions where he?s about 20 to 60, or rather 60 to 20, that?s the period where he?s physically and mentally able to truly enjoy life. One can tell why this view of life would appeal to 46 year old David Fincher, 47 year old Brad Pitt, and even to F. Scott Fitzgerald who was 25 when he wrote the story. Although it is likely a depressing thought for the 63 year old screenwriter.

Between this film and Zodiac, one can definitely and evolution in Fincher as an auteur. In Fincher?s pantheon, the film definitely has a close kinship with Zodiac. Both films cover a much larger scope then Fincher?s previous work which mostly consisted of stories told over the course of a few days or in a case of Fight Club maybe a year. Zodiac followed a criminal investigation over the course of about a decade, but this new film chronicles a man?s life a full eighty years. Like that film, this is sort of a story that kind of sits there existing. It?s characters do not have clear motivations that are accomplished by the end as one would see from a conventional seminar formulated screenplay. The challenge with such a story structure is that everything that the film shows needs to be pretty interesting, and sure enough it is.

First and foremost this film confirms beyond any shadow of a doubt that David Fincher is an absolute master of his craft, not that anyone really doubted that to begin with. Like all of Fincher?s previous work, this film manages to tell its story with keen technological proficiency and inventive devices that keep the film energetic and fresh throughout it?s rather long run running time. Fincher has never been one to shy away from going using visually impressive set-pieces in order to further the story. A great example of this is a scene from Zodiac where time passage is shown by the newspaper headline scrolling across the walls, or another such scene were the construction of the Golden Gate Bridge is shown at a rapid pace. The same kind of trick is present in The Curious case of Benjamin Button as well. There?s a really nice scene where an event?s probability of happening is outlined as a series of coincidences, a montage that helps to destroy possible criticism about the random nature of the event. There?s also a really exceptional montage later in the movie, one of the best such montages I?ve ever seen to show the passage of time. These are the kind of special touches you get to expect from a David Fincher film. It?s also got a sea battle which is really, really, really top of the line.

One thing here that?s very different from Fincher?s previous work is its tone and subject matter. Fincher has long been known for really dark, gritty, R-rated movies like Fight Club and Se7en. No one in this film gets his fingers crushed into a door and there?s not a single head-in-a-box either. In fact there?s a sense of whimsy to the film that may feel more at home in a Spielberg film then a Fincher movie. This could have been a very bad thing, but Fincher never allows it to be. Whimsy is something that can quickly derail a movie if it isn?t earned; you really need to care about a story or else whimsy will just seem manipulative and lame. This never occurs here, all of the film?s whimsy is earned. From the strange prologue, through a running gag about lightning, to the haunting final shot, I think this completely manages to live up to all the ?magic? so many Spielberg wannabes miss the mark on.

Technologically speaking, every element of the film is top of the line. Claudio Miranda?s cinematography is straight up amazing, Alexandre Desplat provides a very appropriate score, and Donald Graham Burt?s production design is out of this world extraordinary. But the thing that makes this movie really stand out is the makeup and the visual effects that were used to make Benjamin Button the backward aging freak that he is. As a child/geezer, Button is played by a variety of stand-ins with names like Peter Donald Badalamenti, Robert Towers, and Tom Everett. What?s amazing is that I have no idea what point in the film Fincher stopped using stand-ins and started using Brad Pitt, the makeup is that seamless. This is simply the best aging makeup/technology I?ve ever seen. All of these amazing effects are there to serve the story, and it?s really nice to see a character drama being a medium for amazing special effects rather than some sort of comic book movie (not that there?s anything wrong with those).

Brad Pitt does everything he can to work through all the makeup, I think he does everything he needs to do for the role, but this isn?t really an actor centric movie and it doesn?t really lend itself to the really impressive kind of acting you?re going to see in something like Doubt. Benjamin Button is a fairly stoic character, one who?s forced to mature early and he doesn?t really emote greatly throughout the film. Blanchet doesn?t really have a whole lot to do either. Taraji P. Henson really stands out in the movie because she has a character that?s a bit easier to love then the more tortured leads.

The movie reminds me a whole lot of Stanley Kubrick?s massively underrated masterpiece Barry Lyndon. The two films couldn?t be more different in tone, pacing, or style; but the underlying film is pretty similar. Both films chronicle the entire life of their title characters, for adventurous youths to domestic middle age, all the way to an old age in which the character?s problems finally catch up with them. They?re not individual stories so much as meditations about what the grand sum of a life can be. It?s a movie which will suck you in and have you transfixed on the cinema screen for its entire 159 minute runtime as long as you?re ready to take the ride.

I grew up raised in the Catholic Church. It was a very nice welcoming place. Masses were long and boring, held in a large kind of spooky cathedral and led by a dude in an elaborate robe, but everyone was pretty nice. I?m no longer religious, but the church had nothing to do with this, my experience was far removed from the usual catholic reputation of conflicted, guilt-ridden, and brooding people. The church I grew up in was a lot different from the way Catholicism was at the beginning of the century. The new film, Doubt, is partly about the struggles that occurred at mid century which shaped the church into the welcoming thing it is today. It?s also about the child abuse scandal that dogs the church to this day. More importantly it is about a woman, who in the depths of her heart is struggling with the faith she has lived with for decades.

The film is written and directed by John Patrick Shanley and based on his own Pulitzer Prize winning play. Set in New York circa 1964, the film is about activities in a catholic school. The principle of this school is a nun named Sister Aloysius Beauvier (Meryl Streep) who lives up to the ruler slapping reputation of nuns at catholic schools. As a principle she?s mean, controlling and unapproachable, very much a member of the old school of Catholicism. The priest of the dioceses is Father Brendan Flynn (Philip Seymour Hoffman), someone of the new school of friendlier Catholicism. Aloysius is clearly not fond of Flynn, but she hold back from openly criticizing him because she respects the hierarchies of the church. A young and naïve nun named Sister James (Amy Adams) begins to notice Flynn holding an oddly close relationship with the school?s first African American pupil (Joseph Foster), Aloysius begins to suspect Flynn is behaving abusively.

This is certainly not a film intended to show off the technical proficiency of the filmmakers. The camera work is consistently competent, and Roger Deakin?s cinematography is quite crisp, but this is a theater adaption through and through. The stage version was set up to be a piece with only four characters, while the film mostly follows suit, it is opened up a bit. There are plenty of extras in the school; there are scenes of the characters interacting with students and scenes of the characters interacting with other clergy members. The characters occasionally go outside, but at the end of the day this is very much a story where a few characters have very long conversations with each other. Still, they adapt this for the screen about as well as they can, they don?t pull silly stunts in order to make it cinematic but they expand it enough to be its own entity.

I think what makes the film so special is that it challenges you to like someone who?s not likable, and hate someone who is likable. It would have been so easy for John Patrick Shanley to write a story where the potentially abusive priest were a staunch traditionalist and harsh disciplinarian, and the nun standing up to him was likable, friendly and reform minded woman who you really wanted to cheer for. Shanley doesn?t take this easy and conventional route. Instead he?s set up a morality tale that forces the viewer to come to grips with which character they relate to and more importantly why they relate to them. Your opinion of the characters will change by the end, then change back, and maybe change again.

The major roles here have been filled by top Hollywood talent, and at the head of it all is Meryl Streep. Streep hasn?t been working on this level for a while; she?s been doing a lot of less prestigious work lately. She has a big challenge here in that it is essential that she makes the audience relate to her character, but the convent lifestyle is not exactly the easiest one to relate to. She needs to exhibit a lot of material through simple looks and line deliveries, all while trying desperately to behave with the kind of restraint and dignity that her character would demand. Streep exhibits a great amount of personal strength on her character?s behalf and does it through the simple authority of her line deliveries.

Frankly, I can?t imagine anyone else doing this role as well as Streep does here. She has a reputation of taking a new accent with every role, and this is no exception. Here she has the slightest Bronx accent, it?s the type of thing 99% of actresses wouldn?t have bothered with, but it really changes a lot about the character. It explains why the local parish is so important, and it generally gives the viewer a better idea of where she came from in life. I think this is a tremendous performance that?s been perfectly balanced throughout the film.

Going up against Streep is Phillip Seymour Hoffman, who also has a difficult balancing act. He needs to control his every look and motion, every line delivery. He has to sell himself as an innocent man, while allowing the possibility of his character?s guilt to still be there, but ever so slightly. Viola Davis has been getting a lot of huge marks for her role as the mother of the potentially abused child. She only really has one longish scene, but she still leaves a big impression. If anyone is a weak link here it?s Amy Adams. Adams is quickly becoming typecast into naïve bubbly roles, and this isn?t a lot different from what she?s done elsewhere. I wouldn?t go so far as to call her poor, but she isn?t working on the same level as the other three performers.

These actors are working with an excellent script that features awesome dialogue. The characters here, especially Aloysius, talk in way that?s a tad formal, but still conversational. Basically, these are people that would never dream of using slang, but they?re still just talking to each other. Despite all the formality, there?s still some really snappy dialogue on display here. Aloysius speaks with strong, really well crafted sentences and argues with complete confidence. There is a surprising amount of humor in the script given the subject matter, Shanley plays around a lot with the fact that these are nuns we?re dealing with, but they?re still human, and when they?re planning out the school activities like it?s a day at the job. Pay close attention to the first and last lines, I think a lot of the film?s meaning can be grasped from these two moments.

I must also say that the movie is marred by a horrible trailer which gives way too much away. I can?t blame the movie for bad marketing though. John Patrick Shanley has written a great play here, I can totally see why it won a Pulitzer. Everything I liked about the film version almost certainly comes from that play and the way it?s performed by these actors. Everything else is perfectly competent, but not amazing. So, what we?ve got here is a great play being performed greatly with production that, if nothing else, usually stays out of the way.

January is generally a wasteland for movies. Its traditionally been a dumping ground studios use to release all the movies so bad they need to be put out while everyone with taste is distracted by the late fall Oscar contenders. Because of this it was a bit of a shock when high profile producer J.J. Abrams announced that his mysterious new project, Cloverfield, would be coming out on January 18th 2008. This was hardly the most unusual aspect about the project; when the trailer came out in front of Transformers it didn?t even have a title attached to it. All this insanity really caught me and other film aficionados off guard. I haven?t even gotten around to doing my 2007 year in review and now I?m already reviewing a 2008 film.
It was easy for rumors to fly about this project, after all most film advertising campaigns go out of their way to give away everything there is to know about a movie long before it comes out. Cloverfield on the other hand took the opposite approach and this lead to massive online buzz and theorizing. It should first be noted that the film?s initial premise of, a giant monster attack, captured on home video by a small group of survivors, is pretty much what you get here. There is no surprise ending, no ?Lost? style twist. Instead this should be seen for what it is: an absolutely relentless thriller.
There?s a pivotal scene mid-way through M. Night Shymalan?s under-appreciated film Signs in which the audience finally very briefly gets a glimpse of the attacking aliens via a home video being shown on a news report. In many ways this is an 85 minute version of that scene. The film is meant to be a recording made on a camera owned by Rob (Michael Stahl-David). Rob is about to move to Japan where there is a job waiting for him, so his brother Jason (Mike Vogel) and friend Hud (T. J. Miller) decide to throw a going away part for him and borrow Rob?s camera to do it.
Mid way through the part a loud noise is made, everyone runs out to the balcony to see a massive explosion in the heart of New York. The party runs out to the street to see the head of the Statue of Liberty fly to the street blow, they then see a very quick glimpse of some sort of giant monster pass through the street. Rob receives a call from his girlfriend and learns she?s trapped in her apartment in the middle of ground zero. In spite of everyone else?s advice Rob decides to go back to save her followed by his entourage, most importantly Hud, who?s carrying his camcorder and decides to ?document? the situation.
The entirety of Cloverfield is seemingly photographed with a handheld camcorder, this is in many ways an evolution of the work pioneered in The Blair Witch Project. Like that work there are certain conceits one must accept to really enjoy this film. Firstly you?d be doing yourself a disservice if you get too hung up by the technical constraints of a camcorder that the film ignores. The sound work in the film is clearly vastly superior to anything a camcorder microphone would be able to handle.
There are however less conceits here than in Blair, for example the reason the battery/ tape never runs out is that the film is roughly the same length as a commercial camera tape would be, the idea is that the film isn?t ?edited? but rather a compression of what was available after Hud turns on and off the camera. So the film is real time in a sense.
The first thing that director Matt Reeves did right here was to maintain a real sense of reality, especially in the beginning. Reeves wisely decided to use almost all unknown actors for the film, and the film also uses very realistic dialogue. Early scenes at Rob?s going away party feature awkward conversations by people who don?t have witty retorts available to use. These people do not talk like movie characters. Up until the monster shows up one could easily be fooled into thinking this is genuine footage.
The camerawork is appropriately amateurish, which may or may not be a good thing depending on the viewer. If realistically shaky camera work is a problem, this isn?t the movie for you. This amateurship is not exaggerated at any point, and it probably won?t induce nausea in anyone who isn?t particularly susceptible to motion sickness, but it is there. What?s important is that this camerawork is not gratuitous, it is in many ways what makes the film special.
The comparisons between this film and Godzilla are inevitable, and they are also valid comparisons. It should be noted that the two films have more in common than the fact that both films feature giant monsters destroying a city. Godzilla has widely been an interpreted as a monster film that reflected the fears of its time and place, which in the case of 1954 Japan was a nuclear crisis. Cloverfield, is in many ways is trying to reflect the fears of our post 9-11 world, namely a fear of being caught in the middle of a completely unexpected disaster in the middle of an Urban center.
The film also reflects how such an attack would be recorded in our current culture of gadgets and Youtube. The original Godzilla, at least the American version, was told through a series of news reports by Raymond Burr. This reflected the increase of media technology in the mid-fifties through the new medium of choice, television. Here however the medium of choice is a personalized gadget, amateurishly shot by someone in a culture where everyone thinks the world cares what they have to film. With The Bair Witch Project many questioned why the ?documentarians? would be holding a heavy camera while running for their lives. Nearly ten years later this seems like a non-issue, in fact Hud?s continual holding of his camera is a statement about this information age culture.
The film could also be compared to Jazz in that what makes it special are the notes it doesn?t play. By the end of the film we never do learn where this monster came from nor are we given an explanation of how the greater world is reacting to the situation. In fact I doubt the film is going to put an end to all the online theorizing, in many ways it asks more questions than it answers. But it?s these unanswered questions that make the film work, the chaos and confusion the characters are in the middle of add significantly to the film. That?s a big part of why it uses the camcorder set-up, it places us directly with this group and it denies viewers the opportunity to demand an expanded explanation.
The film holds off on showing the monster, but not in a manipulative way, when the viewer needs to see this thing it is put on screen, and by the end we are given a pretty good idea of what it looks like, although I don?t think I?d be able to draw a picture of it. The monster looks vaguely Lovecraftian, I wouldn?t be surprised if a Cthulhu Mythos interpretation shows up online. The CGI here is not top of the line, but it works, largely because we mostly get very brief views of the effects material. But getting a chance to see the monster is not why you should go to this; that is just not the point.
The true accomplishment of this film is not the effects, it the suspense. The ages have been filled with giant monster films, and none of them before now have even tried to be remotely suspenseful. This decision not to go for suspense in the past was wise, it?s hard to take something like Godzilla very seriously, especially when the effects consisted of a man in a suit plowing through paper buildings. But what Reeves and Abrams have done here is found a way to generate real suspense out of such an insane premise and they?ve done it by amping up the realism and placing the protagonists right in the middle of the crisis. Other films like Emerich?s Godzilla make the mistake of allowing the main characters into relative safety and then having them walk back into the mess. Here the characters are stuck in a chaotic situation and are completely defenseless.
Of course the film isn?t perfect. The biggest mistake here was to formulate the plot around a rescue ?mission,? with Rob and company trying to save Rob?s lover from her apartment. I was able to take a lot for granted here, but there was a certain point where I stopped believing that anyone in their right mind would keep going along with this suicide mission. I understand why they went in this direction and some of this love story does pay off in a big way, but it really did stretch believability way past what I was going to accept. I also would have generally liked a little more character development out of our band of heroes. Still, one has to accept a certain limit to what can fit into this sort of experimental project.
At the end of the day, Cloverfield may not be the greatest cinematic achievement we see, but it will be an important time capsule. I think this film will be a real artifact of its place and time. It is certainly very different than anything you?d expect from a Hollywood disaster film, and that in itself is an accomplishment of sorts.

What?s interesting about Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man elected to office in America, is that throughout his entire career he never reached higher office then City Supervisor (essentially synonymous with city council). I for one barely even know what a City Supervisor is; it?s one of those offices at the bottom of a ticket that you tend to just follow a sample ballot in order to pick. It?s who Milk was and what he did with the office that made all the difference. Milk was never really trying to be a politician; he was trying to be the head of the gay rights movement. At this he succeeded, thirty years after his death he remains the most visible and clear leader that movement has ever seen. It would seem that he?s a figure as important to Gus Van Sant as Malcolm X was to Spike Lee or Jim Morrison was to Oliver Stone.

The film begins on the fortieth birthday of Harvey Milk (Sean Penn), the day he meets his future lover Scott Smith (James Franco) at a New York bus stop. They decide to travel to San Francisco where they can live a more open lifestyle. They set up a camera store in the Castro district, but discrimination from local businessmen inspires Milk to unite the homosexual population politically. The film follows him through three failed elections and through his eventual political success and his securing of a spot at the head of the Gay Rights movement. Along the way he meets his rival and eventual assassin, a fellow city supervisor named Dan White (Josh Brolin). The whole film is narrated via a framing device where Milk tells his life story into a tape recorder, a tape which is only meant to be listened to in the case of his death by assassination.

Gus Van Sant is a filmmaker who emerged as the director of such independent gems as Drugstore Cowboy and My Own Private Idaho but somewhere around the turn of the millennium he decided to quit worrying about accessibility and start making highly experimental micro-films like Gerry, Elephant, Last Days, and Paranoid Park. These experimental films were definitely interesting, but they didn?t really make me salivate the way they did to some critics. I?ve been waiting for a while to see him get back to making ?normal? movies without going to outrageously far into the mainstream a la Finding Forrester. Milk is just such a film, it is accessible without being needlessly flashy. This is exactly the tone that a sweeping biopic needs, and Van Sant?s direction should disappoint no one unless they were expecting the film to be two hours of Harvey Milk doing paperwork and having banal conversations before getting shot.

Sean Penn gives a fine performance as the title character, he looks and sound just like the real thing and he also acquires a lot of the guy?s energy and mannerisms. That said, I can?t help but be a little less impressed by actors mimicking real people then I once was. It was damn impressive the way Jamie Fox was able to inhabit Ray Charles, but then Joaquin Phoenix inhabited Johnny Cash just as well the next year, and the year after that we got to see Helen Mirren and Forrest Whitaker mimicking real people just as well the next year. There?s something just a little less impressive about watching Sean Penn pull off the same trick again this year. It?s certainly not Penn?s fault that his role emerged late in this trend, but still I can?t help but not react with the same enthusiasm to this kind of work as I once did.

The rest of the cast is also quite good. Jame Franco is great as a character that matures alongside Milk and really seems a lot different at the end as he does at the beginning. Emile Hirsch is fresh off his excellent work in Penn?s Into the Wild, and he?s almost unrecognizable as Cleve Jones, an angry young guy who Milk recruits to use his skills as a ?prick? in fighting for the gay rights movement. Alison Pill is also very good as the Milk?s lesbian campaign manager Anne Kronenberg. I do however take issue with the performance of Diego Luna as Jack Lira, one of Milk?s lovers. Lira appears to be a very strange, disturbed person from moment one and frankly I think Luna went a bit over the top in the role.

Special note should be made of Josh Brolin?s work here as Dan White. Brolin delivers another fine bit of mimicry, he looks just like the real guy and between this and his work in Oliver Stone?s W. he?s proven himself the best impersonator of the year. As a character, Dan White is quite interesting. Van Sant gives a surprisingly sympathetic portrayal of White here, and the film is better for it. Throughout the film White acts with a degree of civility toward Milk despite an obvious discomfort toward him. The murders White commits seem less motivated by hatred then they do by a sense of political betrayal and, on a deeper level, a sense of anger that there is less of a place for his conservative attitudes in an increasingly progressive San Francisco. The movie may have completely gone off the tracks if they had portrayed White as a raging homophobic villain. Most of this material is reserved for a truly vile bitch named Anita Bryant who Van Sant wisely depicts only through archive footage, in any other form she would be too horrible to be believed.

One of the problems with biopics, is that anytime they seem to be doing something cliché or conventional, the obvious counter argument is ?that really did happen, I?m just telling it like it is.? For this reason it?s a bit awkward to call something cheesy, but the film falls into a few very blatant biopic pitfalls on occasion. I?m thinking in particular of a wheelchair bound adolescent who randomly telephones Milk on two occasions, both suspiciously useful ones to the plot, in order to tell him how inspirational Milk?s work is to him. This may well have happened, but it sounds way too close to Lou Gehrig promising a dying child two homeruns for comfort. Another issue is a moment I don?t want to give away, but it?s a traumatic event in Milk?s love life. Normatively it serves no real purpose other than to raise stakes that didn?t really need raising, and it doesn?t emotionally effect him in the rest of the movie nearly as much as it should. Again, these may well have been true events, but they feel like clichés and are not really necessary in the first place. I think Van Sant would have been wise to cut them.

Ultimately, I think what really prevents Milk from being an exceptional work is that the Harvey Milk depicted works better an inspirational figure then he does as a dramatic character. Van Sant sees Milk as an almost Gandhi-like saint; he?s just not the most complex character out there. There?s a moment midway into the film where Milk says that one of his strategies would be to expose people who were in the closet. One person mentions that this would be a violation of a right to privacy, and Scott Smith points out a degree of hypocrisy in that Milk was closeted well into his thirties. Van Sant doesn?t press the issue much beyond that, and that?s about the closest the film ever comes to exploring anything about Milk?s life that could be seen as controversial to the film?s target audience. Of course Van Sant likely sees Milk as a hero, but that doesn?t mean he can?t try to look at more nuances. For instance, Spike Lee clearly admired Malcolm X, but he had no hesitance to have the protagonist of his biopic say and do a lot of things that the film?s audience wasn?t going to agree with.

Milk is a very energetic biopic of an important American. I certainly recommend the film to anyone with even the slightest interest in the subject, or to anyone that is interested in watching a very well made drama with a very good cast. The film occasionally flirts with greatness, but it never quite transcends the biopic genre.

Charlie Kaufman accomplished a number of seemingly impossible achievements when he wrote the movie Being John Malkovich in 1999. Firstly, he managed to make a totally unconventional and weird movie into a commercial success. Secondly, he managed to make a name for himself among film enthusiasts as a screenwriter. Since then, he?s also written the scripts for such weird (and such successful) films as Adaptation, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Now he?s made his debut as a director with Synecdoche, New York a film that?s even more mind-bending than his previous work.

The film follows Caden Cotard (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a middle aged director of avant-garde theater. His wife Adele (Catherine Keener) is a painter and he has a daughter named Olive. After he?s hit in the head during a pluming accident, Caden finds himself dwelling on his health. Shortly thereafter he unexpectedly receives a MacArthur genius grant and decides to make a play that would be the panicle of honesty, to do this he builds an elaborate set in of an entire city in a football stadium and populates it with actors who are ordered to act like other people living mundane lives. This play is in preparation for a good fifty years; meanwhile Caden must deal with his wife leaving him, his estrangement from his daughter, and the other various women who enter his life.

To call this movie challenging would be an understatement. Kaufman?s previous films were complicated and met, but to a certain extent they were high concept affairs. Being John Malkovich was about people being able to enter the mind of the titular actor, Adaptation was about a writer writing a script about writing that same script, and Eternal Sunshine was about a man?s journey through his own mind while people erase the memories of his ex. Those are all tricky concepts to wrap your head around, but once you ?get? the concept, the rest of the movie will probably make sense to you. Synecdoche, New York isn?t rooted in a concrete gimmick like that, and as such it not going to be as accessible.

Synecdoche, New York in many ways seems to have more similarities to Kaufman?s 2001 screenplay Human Nature. Both films deal with broad themes of humanity in very direct ways, and uncompromisingly makes its points in whatever bizarre way Kaufman wants to. This film is exploring a number of themes like the effects of aging, fear of mortality, the purpose of art, the challenges of parenting. The movie is made for people who are going to put some work into deciphering its themes and symbolism, if you?re not that kind of person, then I?m officially not recommending the movie for you. If you are this kind of person, then read on.

They say that drama is life without the boring parts; this is a movie about a man who doesn?t realize the boring parts have been cut out. Most films of this kind take place over a day, maybe a week, but Synecdoche, New York takes place over at least fifty year. The years pass by here at a rapid pace, but the film never uses any sort of non-diegetic trick to mark the time passage, what?s more Caden constantly seems as confused by the years passing as we are. The purpose of all this is for one simple purpose, to express the human notion that their life goes by faster then they realize. For example, Caden?s daughter starts out the film around the age of eight. Throughout the film Caden seems very confused whenever he?s told she?s older than this and before we know it she?s fully grown. One is reminded by this of parents saying their offspring will ?always be daddy?s little girl.? Are there easier ways to express these notions? Probably, but that?s to forget how uncompromising Charlie Kaufman is when he wants to make a point about one of these grand themes.

Another fairly trippy symbol occurs when a character played by Samantha Morton tries to buy a house, which is on fire. She is shown this house by a real estate agent who talks about the property in a nonchalant manner despite the obvious flaw of it being on fire. Morton says she?s afraid of being killed by the fire, but that she?ll by the house because she?s already 36 and not getting any younger. Presumably this is supposed to represent aging as well, something that is rushed into despite the fact that it will ultimately kill you. The idea, presumably, is to show that fear of aging is a perfectly rational emotion and that the truly irrational people are those that glamorize the aging process rather than embracing their youth.

The film is not only about aging and mortality; it?s also very interested in the purpose of art. It is easy to assume that Kaufman is again writing himself into his screenplay, much as he did with Adaptation, except in a more covert way. Caden?s elaborate play is obviously a really stupid and pretentious, and Kaufman knows it. After all, why would someone want to replicate reality in such detail when you can just live the real thing? It may also be saying something about just how far an artist will go when he has complete freedom. Without any kind of resistance or financial constraints Caden has the freedom to work on his play until it is perfect, and because Caden is so ambitious, the result is that his work will never be done. He set out to make something great, but because he has no reason to stop he ends up making nothing. His wife?s art by contrast, is comedicly small and manageable, she?s very prolific but what she makes needs a magnifying glass to even be seen.

These are only a few of the crazy symbols that Kaufman fearlessly throws onto the screen. I?m not going to list all of my symbolic observations, if I did this would be a very long review, I?m mainly just trying to give the reader an idea what they?d be getting into with this film. However, I don?t want to give the impression that this can only be enjoyed as a meta exercise in symbolism, though that is a huge part of the movie?s appeal. The film does work simply as an absurdist narrative, the viewer will empathize with Caden throughout the film. I especially enjoyed the last twenty minutes when the film begins to reach its final note. I?d also point out that this is not a movie that just throws out its symbols with reckless abandon, there?s a real method to its madness, a genuine internal logic? probably.

Roger Ebert has suggested in his review of the movie that the movie probably has to be seen twice. This is probably true, but it?s a lot easier for him to say as a professional critic who can see the film at a bunch of festivals before it even opens to the public. As an amateur, probably won?t be able to see it again until its DVD release. I?m not really comfortable saying whether this is ?good? or ?bad? until that day comes I suppose the biggest questions I have to ask myself are ?did the movie make me want to see it again? and ?if so, how much.? The answers are ?yes? and ?a lot.? So I suppose this was quite a success.

As an amateur critic, I?m deprived a lot of things that my professional colleagues have access to, namely paychecks and advanced screenings. But another thing I miss out on is the film festival experience, the chance to hike out to places like Telluride and Toronto to watch small movies for hours on end, and to get a feel for what filmmakers who are more than a little bit outside of the Hollywood mainstream are doing. Of course I could just hike out to places like Cannes on my own? but the aforementioned lack of paychecks tends to get in the way of that. But, while I?ve never been to the Sundance film festival, I do get the Sundance channel on my cable service, and that?s where I discovered a beautiful little film called Man Push Cart.

Man Push Cart was a very small film set on the streets of New York; it followed an Iranian immigrant working out of a vending cart as he simply tried to make ends meet. It was a very good meditation on the American Dream. Man Push Cart introduced (a few) audiences to a very talented director named Ramin Bahrani, a man who is now one of the most promising talents in the independent film world. Earlier this year Bahrani released his second film, another slice of life about someone trying to survive in an unsavory area of New York called Chop Shop.

The film follows Ale (Alejandro Polanco), a pre-adolescent orphan working at and living in the attic of a seedy Chop Shop in Queens. Ale has never gone to school, with no intention of being scooped up by child protective services his only means of survival is a life of (very) petty crime. He first works at the Chop Shop, but his criminal activity escalates throughout the film to include the sale of bootleg DVDs to theft. One day he learns that his sixteen year old sister Izzy (Isamar Gonzales) is going to come live with him in the Chop Shop attic. Once they reunite Ale tells her of an opportunity he has to buy a vending van, an object that could change their lives.

Bahrani clearly takes inspiration from the Italian neorealists with his approach to filmmaking. He shows the stark realities of poor areas with stark, documentary-like filmmaking in real locations and from the use of non-actors. The grainy photography that categorized the movement back in the day has been replaced by sharp digital photography. I?ve come to admire the video-like look of some digital photography, it?s not pretty but it has the ability to see the world the way the human eye does, it?s stark, untouched, un-calculated; it?s the perfect medium for something that?s as gritty as the material here.

The non-actors are also pretty good here, in that way non actors can be. Alejandro Polanco is consistently articulate and believable in his role as a street urchin, Isamar Gonzales isn?t quite as good as his sister, but she doesn?t hurt the film at all. Ahmad Razvi, who played the lead character in Man Push Cart, has a supporting role here. Razvi is a very good screen presence and it?s nice to see him getting more work (these two films are his only credited roles). A kid named Carlos Zapata plays Ale?s friend and fellow street kid.

Chop Shop is a sad film, but it isn?t depressing. The world Ale lives in is a very unpleasant place for a kid to be in, but it doesn?t dwell on his misery, rather it?s about his struggle to improve his life through day to day work and saving. It?s another meditation on the American Dream from Ramin Bahrani, and I can?t wait to see what this man makes next.

If there?s ever been a genre that critics have (rightfully) had no interest in praising, it?s the stoner comedy. Most of the films in that genre are incredibly lowbrow works, often madcap in nature, that have no interest in entertaining anyone outside of a selected niche. I am about as far from that niche as anyone can get, I?ve never been one to ?party? and have little in common with the Cheeches and Kumars of the world. The genre?s low level of esteem made it all the more curious when I learned that David Gordon Green, a director known for dead serious films like Snow Angels, was making a stoner comedy with Seth Rogen. Seth Rogen and producer Judd Apatow have yet to disappoint me (though the fact that I haven?t seen Drillbit Taylor helps their track record), and David Gordon Green is a true artist. With all that talent behind the project it was enough to overcome my trepidation about the film?s genre and give the movie a shot, and I?m glad I did because this is yet another quality comedy from team Apatow.

The film follows Dale Denton (Seth Rogen), a twenty-something process server who spends most of his free time getting stoned out of his mind. On a break from serving people subpoenas Dale goes to his dealer Saul Silver (James Franco), who?s even more of a stoner type than Dale. Saul introduces Dale to Pineapple Express, a new strain of weed that Saul describes as ?the dopest dope I?ve ever smoked.? Dale is impressed by this new pot and buys some before leaving to serve another subpoena, this time to someone named Ted Jones (Gary Cole), a name Saul recognizes as that of the local drug distribution lord. Dale arrives at Ted?s house only to find himself the witness to the brutal murder through the window of his car. In a rush to escape Dale drops one of the Pineapple Express blunts he just bought on the ground and drives off. Realizing that Ted could track that dropped blunt back to Saul, Dale and Saul decided to go on the run to escape Ted?s wrath.

Pineapple Express differs from the stoner comedy in a number of ways. Most stoner comedies have a very clear focus in their jokes about the sheer quantity of marijuana the characters smoke, there?s none of that here. In fact there?s not really that much onscreen smoking here after the first act, just a certain knowledge that the characters are acting under the influence through much of the film?s duration. There are also no hallucinatory images illustrated here, while there are certainly unrealistic elements (and a strange prologue), these are all more a matter of comedic anarchy than drug induced hallucinations. Here the drugs aren?t really the source of the humor, rather it is the stupid behavior caused by the drugs that are the film?s main joke. In the long run the stoner categorization is a red herring, the film?s humor has more in common with Judd Apatow?s other slacker comedies like Knocked Up, except that reefer is a bit more emphasized as the source of said slackerdom.

It?s not just the stoner comedy genre that this film differentiates itself from, it?s far more ambitious technically than 90% of studio comedies. The conventional wisdom in Hollywood is that there?s no need to put serious talent behind comedies because the jokes and the actors should be able to shoulder the film. This is an understandable position given the horrible results that often face huge budget comedies like Evan Almighty, and with people like Kevin Smith able to bring the laughs on a shoestring there seems to be little need to put real money into this kind of movie, as a result studio comedies tend to be directed by solid but anonymous directors like Adam McKay and Nicholas Stoller.

Pineapple Express is by no means a large budget production, but it?s not a thrown together affair either, mainly because David Gordon Green is no Adam McKay. Green is a director who has established major indie credibility with subtle lyrical films like George Washington and All the Real Girls, his work is characterized by long lingering takes and a down to earth connection with working class characters. This is his mainstream premiere, and he wisely avoids a lot of the slow lyricism which would have been completely out of place in a movie like this, but he has kept his astute visual eye and technical craft. He and his longtime cinematographer Tim Orr seem to be taking this production just as seriously as they took Snow Angels. The looser feel of this movie has more in common with Green?s less famous 2004 film Undertow than it does with All the Real Girls, but unlike that 2004 film which never seemed sure what it wanted to be, this is a very focused affair; it wants to make the audience laugh while also telling a coherent story.

Seth Rogen is on autopilot here, but that?s not really a bad thing, I like his shtick and it works for his character here. He?s really playing a straight man of sorts to James Franco?s character who?s the biggest slacker yet to grace a Judd Apatow movie. Franco?s character sports very long unkempt hair and a t-shirt with a cat in a shark?s mouth. I might be so bold as to call this the best stoner on film since Jeff Bridges immortal performance as The Dude in the Coen brothers? opus The Big Lebowski. The duo has a definite chemistry with Saul representing a more traditional stoner and Dale being closer to the kind of relatively functioning stoner of other Apatow productions. I can?t say the supporting cast is as good as the core duo, Gary Cole and Rosie Perez both work well enough as villains, but neither are particularly memorable. Also present are a pair of henchmen played by Craig Robinson and Kevin Corrigan who were decent, but again not particularly memorable. There is however a great pair of small roles for Ed Begley Jr. and Nora Dunn that provide some of the film?s best laughs.

Another major aspect of the film is the way it mixes the stoner comedy genre with some chaotic action scenes. The action scenes share a certain affinity with last year?s Hot Fuzz, except they are not being done to parody Hollywood action films; they?re there more out of a certain comedic anarchy, to put these hugely unambitious stoners into extreme situations. There?s also a real danger to the violence here, people do die in the movie and the main characters shoot to kill when they?re placed in danger toward the end. Unfortunately there are mixed results in the violence department here. There?s a spectacular comedic car chase midway through with James Franco getting his foot caught in the windshield of a cop car. The films finale on the other hand, while good, simply goes on way too long.

It?s obvious that David Gordon Green?s goal going in was to work on a mainstream field without sacrificing his independent standards of quality and to make the ultimate stoner comedy in the process. On the first count he succeeded, his style has been altered appropriately to work for the film he?s making, but Hollywood hasn?t forced him to compromise. He also just might have succeeded at making the ultimate stoner comedy as well were it not for the existence of The Big Lebowski. In final analysis, this is an Apatow film with a much heavier hitter behind the camera, if Superbad and Knocked Up rocked your world the way it rocked mine you?ll have a whole lot of fun with this.

India is fast emerging as one of the world?s fastest growing economies, a fact that seems to be in conflict with their poor infrastructure and the slums that fill their cities. The cinema of India is not particularly well known for depicting any of this, it?s mainly known for large budget audience pandering musicals, a cinema that most in the west are aware exists but which few have bothered to see. Oddly it is mostly outside filmmakers who have been more interested in depicting the social hardships in India with movies like Water, which was made by the Indian-Canadian filmmaker Deepa Mehta. The new Danny Boyle film, Slumdog Millionaire, would seem to be a much more realistic depiction of the streets of India; but it?s quickly apparent that it is just as interested in pleasing audiences as the Bollywood musicals, except that it?s western audiences it seeks to please.

The film follows a young man from the streets of Mumbai India named Jamal Malik (Dev Patel) who finds his way onto the Indian version of ?Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (which looks and sounds identical to the American version), where he?s reached the level of ten million Rupees despite a lack of any formal education. The local authorities are highly suspicious of his advance through the ranks, so they arrest him and subject him to extreme interrogation. A more disciplined inspector (Irfan Khan) eventually shows up and decides to ask him, question by question, how he managed to attain all this knowledge. At this point the film begins a series of flashbacks in which it is revealed where he learned each question and which together tell the whole arc of Jamal?s life and how he came to find himself on a game show.

It would be reductive to call this an Indian version of Forrest Gump, but the similarities between the two films are striking. Both films tell the recent history of a country through the life story of a seemingly unimportant and lowly citizen who stumbles through larger events. Both are told through framing stories, though this game show story is significantly more interesting than Gump?s bus stop talk, in fact as far as framing stories go this game show scheme is really top-notch. Unlike Gump, though, Jamal is less likely to actually stubble through historical events so much as social touchstones of changing times. This is one of the film?s weakness, it occasionally feels like a white tourists guided tour through India?s stereotypes, almost like the writers brainstormed everything that comes immediately to mind while thinking about the country and through them all in. Bollywood films: check, Hindi Muslim conflict: check, Taj Mahal: check, telemarketing: check, they leave almost no stone unturned, and this is a problem when it would have felt much more natural for them to stick to one region. It?s almost like if an Indian decided to make a movie about America and made absolutely certain that he included refereces to the Western movie genre, a rally about the abortion issue, a trip to the Lincoln Memorial, and someone working at the Coca-Cola factory.

Another major work I?d compare the film to is Dickens? ?Oliver Twist,? especially during the flashbacks to Jamal?s young days as an orphan on the streets. These scenes are particularly effective at capturing the chaos of the Mumbai streets. The depictions of the Mumbai ghettos feel somewhat influenced by Fernando Meirelles? excellent City of God. While the life lived by the young Jamal is quite grim but there is a sense he doesn?t really see it that way, there is a sense of Dickensian joviality to his exploits. He?s a precocious little slumdog and in the tradition of these sorts of stories he finds all kinds of creative and somewhat amusing ways to get by.

The camera work here is often handheld and the cinematography is relatively grainy compared to most movies, and the editing is fairly aggressive. This camera work is not done to make the audience even subconsciously think they?re watching a documentary, it?s closer to what Paul Greengrass has achieved with movies like The Bourne Ultimatum, except here it?s applied to a drama instead of a thriller. The catch is, that Boyle rarely ever goes too far with any of these techniques, the handheld camera isn?t anywhere near as obvious as in Greengrass? work, the grainy film stock is still clearly 35 millimeter and still quite slick, and the editing shouldn?t be disorienting even to the most sensitive of viewers, but each technique is used just enough to give the movie a certain degree of grit and keep the pace very fast.

The film?s music mostly excellent. The original music was composed by a legendary Bollywood composer A. R. Rahman who has clearly mastered the art of using Indian instruments and musical styles to score films. Rahman?s score is very effective and is probably part of why the film moves so quickly while telling a story with a pretty large scope. However, I do take issue with the film?s use of the M.I.A. song ?Paper Planes,? a song that is closely associated with the summer of 2008 and feels completely out of place in a flashback scene set before the song was even written.

The film?s spoken language is divided between English and Hindi, which can be a jarring mix. The entire section featuring an Adult Jamal including the game show segments are in plain English, while most of the flashbacks to him as a child are in subtitled Hindi. I really wish that Boyle had just stuck with one language or the other, he should have either made the whole film in Hindi to reflect the actual language of the Indian people, or if he wanted to avoid the whole subtitle thing he should have done it consistently. As it is, the film seems to depict Jamal mysteriously switching languages somewhere around puberty, and the rest of the country following suit. This is made all the more confusing when instances pop up of his character actually speaking English to American, British, and German tourists, making it rather unclear when the spoken English is supposed to simply be a translation for the audience or an actual instance of the character speaking English.

This language problem is made all the more annoying because of the filmmakers decision to use stylized subtitles. These are subtitles that appear in a number of different areas of the screen rather than staying on the bottom like most film subtitles. I didn?t like this technique in Man on Fire, I didn?t like it in Night Watch, and I don?t like it here. When subtitles consistently appear in the same place at the bottom of the screen it?s a lot easier for them to blend in with the language of the film and cease to be noticed then when they?re bouncing all over the place.

This language material is distracting, but certainly forgivable, what?s not so forgivable is that the film can be a little predictable at times. Particularly in a pair of scenes that are meant to be suspenseful Who Wants to Be a Millionaire questions, like situation about 2/3 of the way through the movie where he?s given an opportunity to cheat, but anyone whose caught on to the film?s intended message about fate know exactly how Jamal will handle this. More egregious then this is a case of incredibly obvious foreshadowing where Jamal runs across a piece of useless trivia early on in his life, and it doesn?t take a rocket scientist to know this is going to come up again in the final question. Did I only pick up on these because I?m jaded by seeing so many other movies? Possibly, but if Boyle had been a little less blatant in his foreshadowing on that second point it would have been a little more suspenseful.

A lot of the negative things I?m bringing up aren?t really huge problems; in fact they?re flaws bordering on nitpicking. The reason I find this so interesting is that Danny Boyle?s last film, Sunshine, had a flaw toward the end that was much more egregious then anything I mentioned; and yet I found myself much more willing to forgive Sunshine for its flaw then I am Slumdog Millionaire. I think this is because all of that film?s problems were confined to the last fifteen minutes and leave the preceding ninety minutes completely flawless, whereas Slumdog Millionaire?s flaws are littered throughout the movie and pervade the entire project.

I have problems with the movie, but that doesn?t mean Slumdog Millionaire isn?t a movie I can happily recommend for anyone to see. At the end of the day this is a feel good story about a character triumphing over adversity, and one that knows when to pander and when not to pander and never feels saccharin. Basically, it?s a crowd pleaser for people who know how to detect cheese; I?m not surprised that it was able to get enthusiasm from festival audiences. It should not however be mistaken for a wildly creative film. In one key way, it actually reminds me of Mel Gibson?s Apocalypto in that both films take stories that might seem cliché, but tell them in areas we?re not so used to seeing on screen in order to seem more fresh then it probably is. For the most part, Slumdog Millionaire probably is strong enough to get away with this.

Like many other people, I really love the Coen Brother?s darker sensibilities. Blood Simple, Fargo, The Man Who Wasn?t There, and No Country for Old Men are favorites of mine; they?re great movies that tell dark stories while keeping a certain quirkiness to their tone, but without winking too noticeably at the audience. When the Coen Brothers make more straightforward comedies however, my taste in them tends to be a bit more hit or miss. I love The Big Lebowski as much as the next guy, but projects like Raising Arizona, Barton Fink, and The Hudsucker Proxy never really worked for me. Part of my distate for these movies comes from the way they were transparently borrowing from older movies and putting their own riff on them, additionally the teaming of John Goodman, John Turturro, and Steve Buscemi got a bit grating after a few films, and some of the broader comedy and fourth wall breaks were not to my tastes. The Coen?s new movie, Burn After Reading, is very much of their comedic cannon but it?s darker than a lot of them, and it does away with some of their more annoying traits.

The movie begins with a veteran CIA analyst named Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich) being told he will be demoted because of a drinking problem, outraged by this he quits and storms out. Later he tells his wife Katie (Tilda Swinton), that he plans to write his memoirs which he says may be ?explosive.? Katie, who?s been having an affair with a U.S. Marshall named Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney), is thinks his decision to quit his job is foolish and begins planning a divorce in secret. Katie?s lawyers try to steal Osbourne?s financial files, but in doing so a CD containing the rough draft of his memoir is lost in the locker room of a health club and is found by a personal trainer named Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt) who shows it to another employee named Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand). Linda, who desperately wants money so she can afford multiple plastic surgeries, comes up with a plan to use the CD to blackmail Osbourne into giving them fifty thousand dollars.

The catch to all of this is that all of these people are really, really, stupid. The information on the CD at the center of all this isn?t very valuable, the CIA director calls the incident ?no biggie,? yet they all plot and scheme about it like it?s a vital component of national security that?s worth all the trouble they put into it. At the center of all their troubles is ego, Osbourne has a big enough ego to think anyone cares about his memoirs, Chad and Linda are egotistical to think they know how to effectively blackmail somebody, and Harry is egotistical enough to think the government is after him.

If I were to compare Burn After Reading to any prior movie in the Coen brother?s cannon it would probably be Fargo, in fact both movies have the same basic message at their core: that one shouldn?t let greed push you into the dark side, odds are you aren?t prepared for the consequences. Frances McDormand is by far the least sympathetic of the bunch, she is motivated purely by greed and manipulates those around her to do most of her dirty work. She is in many ways similar to William H. Macy?s character from Fargo, in that she is trying to behave like a criminal but doesn?t know what she?s doing and this results in a disastrous situation.

The Coen brothers? films are always set in a very specific time and place which affects the very texture of the film on a very deep level. The place isn?t as important here but the time is. The film is set in Washington D.C. during the present day. If any other filmmakers had set their film in the present it wouldn?t be noteworthy, but its something the Coens rarely do. For all intents and purposes this is the first Coen brothers film to take place in the 21st century. This isn?t just a default choice for the Coens, it?s a deliberate decision. The reason they set it in the present is that this story is very deeply about modern paranoia and about government secrecy.

The most comical of the characters here, by far, is Brad Pitt?s character, a personal trainer so naïve and perky that his every motion is hilarious. This character is completely clueless and easily manipulated by the Frances McDormand?s character, one almost feels sorry for him getting dragged into her crazy scheme. Malkovich is also great here, his character is a little bit like his famous self portrayal in Being John Malkovich in that he seems frustratingly confused through the whole thing. Clooney is also an interesting presence in the movie, his work isn?t quite as stellar as Pitt, McDormand, or Malkovich, but he holds his own.

This is a very funny movie, but it?s not as madcap or breezy as some of its trailers make it look. The humor will come as no surprise to anyone even slightly familiar to the Coen brother?s work, most of the humor comes from the dialog and the deadpan deliveries of the actors. There are some very funny one-liners, but most of them are more effective because of their context and their delivery than they are in isolation. That said there is a dark edge to the whole affair, some of the situations the character are in are rather dire, and is also some gallows humor on display. It isn?t half as dark as No Country For Old Men, or even Fargo, but one should be aware that this movie doesn?t try to appeal to a mass audience.

The movie really has everything you?d expect from a Coen Brothers comedy; laughs, laid back performances, and sudden bursts of violence mixed with comedy. In fact it has almost too much of what one would expect from a Coen brothers movie, in many ways it?s a holding pattern. If you had hoped the Coens had entered a new phase in their career with No Country For Old Men that would extend to their next project you?ll be disappointed by this film. What?s more, the film?s similarities to their other comedies draw comparisons to those other projects and it looks worse in comparison.

Burn After Reading is not on the same level as No Country For Old Men or Fargo for that matter. It?s a second tier Coen Brothers movie. That said, it?s also a very funny movie with fun performances and a nice quirky little story. In other words, if anyone else had made this it wouldn?t have been much of a disappointment, because this is a good movie, it just isn?t profound or wildly original. The movie is worth seeing, even if it isn?t the best thing the coens have made I still enjoyed the ride.

A decade ago there were very, very few comic book adaptations in theaters. Aside from the first Batman and Superman franchises there were almost none at all. Boy have things changed. Now one can count on a good 2-3 movies a year based on iconic comic book characters and a few more obscure graphic novel adaptations for good measure. One trend that emerged from this trend of comic book movies was that the first sequel of each series seemed to be the best. Spider-Man 2 and X-Men 2 were both significantly better than the movies they preceded. These were of course followed by disappointing third installments, but the second movies in both series were bigger, better, and more confident then the originals without going over the top. Another great example of this was the Guillermo Del Toro directed Blade II, a film that did have major flaws but was a much-improved experience over Stephen Norington?s original. Del Toro has also managed to make a superior sequel to his own comic book franchise, Hellboy.
This installment picks up not too long after the original and Hellboy (Ron Pearlman) is still working in the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense with Abe Sapien (Doug Jones) and his girlfriend Liz Sherman (Selma Blair). Hellboy?s relationship with Liz is full fledged this time, but it?s on rocky terrain. Hellboy is not the easiest person to live with and Liz is near her wits end. Meanwhile, in a subterranean world never discovered by man, an evil albino elf guy named Prince Nuada (Luke Goss) is planning to overthrow mankind and reclaim the earth for inhuman kind, but in order to do this he must collect three pieces of a broken crown that will unleash an invincible mechanical army to do his bidding. Nuada decides to retrieve the first piece of the crown by waging a full on attack on a high-end auction being conducted in downtown Manhattan. Hellboy and the Bureau move in to intervene, but in the process Hellboy falls out of the building onto a crowded street, thus revealing the Bureau to the world, giving Hellboy the freedom he?s always wanted, but perhaps the world isn?t ready for him. Hellboy must deal with this, and more immediately he must stop Prince Nuada from enacting his evil plan.
I didn?t really like the first Hellboy, but I?ve warmed to it over time. Guillermo Del Toro clearly gives a damn about the comic books he?s adapting, which is a refreshing sentiment, but it gave the series a certain cartoonishness that took some getting used to. While most of these superhero type movies mix comic book storylines with science fiction, Hellboy mixes superhero arcs with the fantasy genre. This wasn?t as easy to tell in the first movie, but what Del Toro is trying to do is a lot clearer in this installment. Hopefully with this in mind the plot summery above seem a little less strange, because it isn?t nearly as weird as it sounds on paper, though there are definitely awkward elements.
A lot has changed fro the original film. The long-suffering Bureau chief, Tom Manning (Jeffery Tambor), is still here. But John Myers, the junior agent used to introduce the audience to the bureau in the original, has been unceremoniously cut from the story. As I stated before, there is a much clearer attachment to the fantasy genre here than the previous movie, which had more of a horror vibe. This perhaps fits in with the direction of Del Toro?s other projects coming off of Pan?s Labyrinth and going into his next project, The Hobbit. This allows Del Toro?s imagination to run wild, but there are some downsides. The setup requires a fairly convoluted mythology that is introduced in a fairly long CGI animated prologue. It also requires the audience to accept that there is an extremely elaborate fantasy universe that?s been living among the regular world while rarely being spotted.
What really sets the movie apart from the other comic book franchises it?s competing with is Del Toro?s genuine creativity and visionary designs that are on display throughout the film. Del Toro has a deep love for monster movies and he fills his movies with fantastically designed creatures. With this movie Del Toro has turned the monster quotient up to eleven. Each new creature Hellboy faces in this movie is stranger and cooler looking than the last. This is excellent visual filmmaking in the context of a fun Hollywood action movie. Occasionally though, it is a little too much of a good thing. Pan?s Labyrinth seemed to do a great job with only three monsters, here we must get at least ten if not more. Almost every one of them is as meticulously designed as anything we saw in Pan?s Labyrinth, but occasionally the film seems a bit crowded. There?s a sense of self indulgence in just how many monsters Del Toro has filled this movie with and a few of them might have been better off saved for a later movie.
The visual effects used to put these meticulously crafted monsters up on screen are also very good. One of the best things about Dell Toro?s work is that he never uses CGI as a crutch, while still using it well when it?s necessary. All too often directors will jump computer-animated effects automatically, even for jobs that physical effects are better suited for. Del Toro is not one of these filmmakers, he always knows when to use makeup or practical effects to get the job done. There are only two or three monsters in Hellboy II that are entirely CGI creations, and they?re all things that undeniably needed CGI to be accomplished. I?m not a total CGIiphobe but I love what physical effects bring with them to the screen and it?s nice to see a filmmaker who also values this kind of effects work.
The main villain, Prince Nuada, is a good character on paper and his combat abilities add greatly to the film?s action scenes, but from a visual design standpoint he?s a weak link. He?s basically just an albino dude with long hair, that?s not overly impressive and isn?t up to the creative standards Del Toro has set for himself. The character design reminded me of the Reevers from the television show ?Stargate: Atlantis,? and a number of other Albino villains. In another movie this would have been a passable design, but here he?s completely upstaged by most of his henchmen and by the heroes.
The action sequences are also really good here. The first movie had a few decent fight scenes but it lacked some truly visceral action scenes. A big part of this was that Hellboy himself is sort of a bulky thuggish type, not unlike the Incredible Hulk or The Thing from the Fantastic Four. He wasn?t very prone to acrobatics and the fights in the first one (mainly against equally large squid monsters) were comic book like brawls that relied more on brute force than combat skills. Here though they made the wise choice to make the villain more of an a martial artist type and many of the fights are faster, more choreographed affairs along the line of what we saw in Blade II. That isn?t to say this is as consistently violent as that bloody opus, but it is a step up from what we say in the first Hellboy.
Of course the joy to be found in Hellboy II isn?t all in the special effects and action. The film has a very complete, very witty script. I could have lived without the elaborate mythology behind the story, but I?ll take a creative if slightly convoluted setup any day over another cookie cutter comic book story like Louis Leterrier?s The Incredible Hulk. The story also has attempts at some genuine depth, even if it?s not particularly subtle. I think particularly about the romance between Hellboy and Liz, which Del Toro had the courage to look at very seriously. This is one of the strangest couplings one is likely to ever see, but at points film has more to say about the nature of love than most of the generic romantic comedies that come out. Of course the script occasionally bites off a little more than it chews, like when it introduces the concept of how the public reacts to Hellboy once he?s revealed, but never really follows up on this.
One element of the script that greatly differentiates it from the first installment is that there is a very noticeable increase in the amount of comic relief on display here. The original Hellboy never took itself too seriously, but this sequel has even more comedy in it. There are a whole lot of very comic sequences here like one portion where Hellboy and Abe go on a beer binge. Make no mistake, most if not all of these comedic sequences do work, they?re almost all funny, none of them seem completely out of place, and none of them are distractions. The problem with them isn?t really quality, but rather quantity. The whole point of including comic relief is to release the tension that?s been built at appropriate moments. There?s so much comedy here that the genuine tension has trouble getting built, it?s ?relieved? too early, it would have done the film well to cut some of these scenes.
Del Toro?s decision to cast Ron Pearlman as Hellboy was one of the best casting decisions he could have made for the original movie. He had the size, the gruffness, and the humor that Hellboy needed and he?s just as good here. Doug Jones is also back as Abe Sapien and he?s doing the voice work for the character now as well. I initially thought this would be a problem if only because of continuity, but I didn?t miss David Hyde Pierce one bit. Abe Sapien also has a lot more to do here, I thought he was somewhat wasted in the first film, but he feels like a full fledged character here and Doug Jones makes him come to life effectively. Speaking of voice acting, Seth MacFarlane does the voice of a new character here, and his work is really laugh out loud hilarious here. But the actor who really deserves a standing ovation is Selma Blair, who I thought was really under-appreciated in the first Hellboy. I really like the character Blair created in that first film, she doesn?t have as much to do here but I still really like what she?s doing.
Hellboy II: The Golden Army has a handful of problems, but they shouldn?t be overstated and they?re far overshadowed by the movie?s positive aspects. Del Toro?s imaginative creature creations alone are worth the price of admission and beyond the effects this is a very fun very well made summer movie. This is great escapism and I had a load of fun watching it.

Judd Apatow has become one of the most unlikely power players in Hollywood, who would have thought the man behind the failed television show ?Freaks and Geeks? would end up being the biggest brands in Cinema. He?s also a figure who challenges the auteur theory, after all he?s only directed two movies, 2005?s The 40 Year Old Virgin and 2006?s Knocked Up. It?s as a producer that he?s become a household name by making Superbad, Walk Hard, and Drillbit Taylor. Though he only produces many of these films, his stamp is still all over them. The elements of an Apatow work are quite clear: lovable slackers, crude humor, and a heart deep down. These movies have an amazing skill, they take humor that would normally seem stupid and puts it into a smart package. Forgetting Sarah Marshall, the newest film from the Apatow machine is one of the best.
The lovable slacker this time around is Peter Bretter (Jason Segel), a composer for a very bad crime series, who?s been going out for years with the lead actress on the series: Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell). In the film?s opening Marshall hits peter with a bombshell: she?s been seeing another man and wants to break up. This puts Peter into a grief filled stupor that even a round of one night stands can?t solve. Finally his concerned friend Brian (Bill Hader) tells him he should go to a Hawaiian resort to take his mind off her. Unfortunately, upon arrival he discovers that Sarah was staying at this very resort with the man she had been cheating on him with, a rock star named Aldous (Russell Brand).
Jason Segal was a supporting character in previous Judd Apatow projects, here he?s brought to the forefront much the way Seth Rogan was elevated to leading man status in Knocked Up. Segal clearly had to earn this promotion, as he also wrote the film?s hilarious screenplay. Segal?s casting also brings up one of the main criticisms people have with Judd Apatow?s films: that they all have ugly losers in relationships with beautiful women (a problem no one ever seems to have when Woody Allen does the same thing). Segal?s character has been called a schlub, but he?s not quite the loser Seth Rogan played in Knocked Up. His character is a successful T.V. composer who seems like a nice lovable guy willing to wear bad gifts and carry Sarah Marshall?s purse while she?s on the red carpet.
The film?s comedic structure is simple; it?s loaded with hilarious supporting roles and Peter bumps into each one of them every once in a while and they do something funny. Among these funny supporters are Russell Brand as Sarah Marshall?s outlandish new rock star boyfriend, Jack McBrayer whose basically doing an R-rated version of his page character on the show ?30 Rock,? Jonah Hill as a hotel employee who seems to be stocking Russell Brand, and Paul Rudd as a surfing instructor who seems to be stoned twenty four hours a day. In a lesser movie these characters would have been show stealing standouts, but this movie is so funny that they?re all just parts of one big hilarious package.
If anyone does steal the show it?s an actress playing a mostly non-comedic role: Mila Kunis. Kunis rose to fame on Fox?s ?That 70s Show,? here she plays a hotel employee who takes pity on Peter, letting him into a vacant penthouse and eventually bringing him to a local beach party. I never liked ?That 70s Show,? so Kunis? great presence here was a real surprise to me. Kunis is great at helping jokes set off well, but most importantly she?s able to get the audience to love her, as soon as she comes on the screen the audience has no problem with (pun alert) forgetting Sarah Marshall.
Forgetting Sarah Marshall, fits into the mold of a romantic comedy more than any of the previous Judd Apatow productions. But one shouldn?t let that scare away those just looking for a good comedy. In fact it will probably be a safer bet for those looking for a sex comedy then those trying to entertain a date who may potentially be easily offended. Keep in mind though that these are sex jokes rather than scatological jokes, they?re closer to Kevin Smith than Tom Green. You may have heard the film uses extensive male nudity, these reports have been exaggerated; there are 3-4 very brief comedic shots of full frontal male nudity used for a comedic shock effect, but this is not what this movie should be defined by, there?s a lot more to this movie. The critics who dwell on this small element of the film are doing it a disservice, doing so is like reviewing Borat and focusing on the one wrestling scene.
Of course, the film also shares a few of the problems other Apatow productions have dealt with, namely that the film is more like a hunk of gold then a perfectly crafted diamond. That isn?t to say it?s of any less worth, but it can be just a little rough around the edges. The film could probably use a few cuts, and it also suffers from multiple endings to a certain extent. Frankly I don?t find this to be too much of a problem, and it?s not as noticeable here as it was in Knocked Up.
Forgetting Sarah Marshall will probably come as a surprise to anyone who thought the Judd Apatow label had gotten tired. No doubt the Apatow brand has been watered down by lackluster films like Drillbit Taylor, but this is definitely a return to form that?s right up there with Knocked Up and Superbad. I don?t think the comedy here ever reached the heights of The Forty Year Old Virgin, but I think it might just be the best Apatow project since that debut.

David Gordon Green has become a critical darling, one of the most acclaimed directors to emerge this decade and one of a few successful directors to thus far remain firmly rooted in independent cinema. I personally had a shaky start to exploring David Gordon Green?s films, as I initially had a strong negative reaction to his debut film George Washington, whose non-narrative structure caught me off guard. I revisited the film recently and had a much more positive reception to it, but would not say I loved it. My second try at George Washington did leave me with enough positive feelings for the filmmakers style to check out his sophomore effort All the Real Girls, a film I found to me much more interesting than his debut. However, I was not so thrilled with his third film Undertow which felt uneven and disorganized. Still, even when he failed for me it was clear that there was still a lot of talent in him and I was excited to see his latest film, Snow Angels.
The film is set in a small Pennsylvania town during the winter and revolves around a large ensemble. Annie (Kate Beckinsale) has recently separated from her alcoholic ex-husband Glenn (Sam Rockwell) and is raising a young child. Annie has been having an affair with Nate (Nicky Katt), who?s married to Barb (Amy Sedaris) who works with Annie at a local Chinese restaurant. Also working at this restaurant is Arthur Parkinson (Michael Angarano), a teenage busboy who Annie used to babysit when he was a child. Arthur has recently befriended Lila (Olivia Thirlby), the new girl in school who is something of a free spirit. Arthur?s own family is going through a tough divorce and he is finding himself trying to find a balance between his two parents.
That?s a lot of characters, a lot to set up, and a lot to introduce. This is the biggest challenge Green faces with this film, he has to introduce all that in a skillful way before he moves on with the main story which I?m reluctant to give away. I?m not really sure Green is ever able to overcome this challenge. Anyone who?s seen previous films from David Gordon Green knows that he works at a slow, natural pace and by the time everything is set up there really isn?t much time for the main story to unfold. This probably wasn?t a problem in Stewart O'Nan novel this film is adapted from, but screen time is more important that page count.
Additionally the two sides of the story always seem a bit uneven, the Arthur Parkinson character feels somewhat tangential to the story and if he was removed from the film it would have little effect on Annie?s story, while the reverse is not true. I haven?t read the O?Nan novel, but I have a hunch that it is largely about the Arthur character and his reactions to what happens to Annie, the movie however is not. The film does not center on a single perspective but shows all the events equally. Annie has more screen time simply because she is involved in more external action and her story dominates the film more so than Arthur.
Of course none of these flaws make themselves known while actually watching the film, much like other David Gordon Green films, this is feels really good while it?s being watched even if it doesn?t necessarily add up to the sun of its part. The film is so well made, so interesting that simply going along for the ride is enough of an experience to recommend the film.
The acting ensemble here is really great. Kate Beckinsale gives the performance of her career here as Annie, she?s an actress who has found herself in a lot of trashy Hollywood films, but this film proves that she has a real talent. Michael Angarano is also quite good, I think he may have a bright future ahead of him, as does Olivia Thirlby who had a small role in last year?s Juno. Nicky Katt and Amy Sedaris also give good performances, but the performance that really needs to be singled out is that of Sam Rockwell. Rockwell is one of the best character actors working today and here he?s able to take a character that easily could have been one dimensional and brought it to life in a great way.
Rockwell?s entire character is really interesting throughout the movie, our reaction to him is a case study in perception. There?s something a bit off about him but he seems like a pretty nice, slightly quirky guy. Annie?s fear of him and frequent dismissals of his attempts to bring the family together again seem unreasonable at first, but that?s because we don?t know him like she does. Glenn claims to be a born again Christian, but it becomes increasingly clear that alcohol still has a lot more control over him than Jesus.
David Gordon Green has moved beyond the Terrence Malick imitating he used to great effect in his first films, but that doesn?t mean Snow Angels is any less captivating. The film does have a narrative structure but there is still a real patience on display, a willingness to linger and to focus on things other directors would ignore. The technical elements are all at the top of their game; Tim Orr?s cinematography is as good as ever and the framing is great throughout.
This all plays into the film?s ultimate success. The story telling is so great that the film works in spite of itself. The same could be said of many other David Gordon Green movies, the guy has a real knack for making good movies that fail to be great in interesting ways. Someone with this much talent is bound to make something truly extraordinary eventually. This still isn?t his magnum opus, but his filmmaking just keeps getting better.

Sergei Bodrov?s Mongol, seems in many ways to be a film without a country. Companies in such disparate areas as Germany, Russia, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan funded the movie. The film was largely shot in China, the director is Russian, the cast is from all over Asia, and the spoken language is Mongolian. It was Kazakhstan that submitted the film for nomination at the 2008 Academy Awards foreign film category, and it did manage to get a nomination. Of course it still took months after it earned its nomination to finally get a release stateside, which is one of the many things about that Oscar category that?s annoying; if it were up to me a film would need to have an American release prior to its nomination like it would in every other category. Still, it was worth the wait because Mongol, a film about the early life of Genghis Khan, does mostly deliver on what it promises.
The film begins in 1171 with a nine year old Genghis Khan (Odnyam Odsuren), who was going by the name Temudjin at this point, being brought to select a future wife in order to solidify an alliance between his father?s tribe and another tribe. Young Temudjin selects a girl named Borte (Bayertsetseg Erdenebat), but on the way home Temudjin?s father (Ba Sen) is poisoned by a rival tribe. He returns to find that tribe pillaging his people and Targutai (Amadu Mamadakov), the leader of this enemy tribe, threatens to kill Temudjin, but decides to wait until he?s older as per Mongolian custom. Temudjin tries to flee but has an accident and is narrowly saved by another young tribal heir named Jamukha (Amarbold Tuvshinbayar) who takes Temudjin in as a blood brother. Temudjin eventually grows up (and is played as an adult by Tadanobu Asano) and returns to Borte?s home village to claim her as a wife. Borte (now played by Khulan Chuluun) gladly goes with him, but is eventually kidnapped by the rival Merkit tribe. Temudjin has no choice but to return to Jamukha (now played by Honglei Sun) and beg him to send his men on a rescue mission.
Mongol, the first of a planned trilogy about Genghis Khan, was clearly envisioned as a biographical epic in the vein of Spartacus or even Lawrence of Arabia. Of course the film never reaches the heights of those examples, but I admired the effort nonetheless. The film does have some awesome battles, but it never devolves into a total action movie along the lines of 300. The movie is about 80% character growth and development and 20% kickass fighting, with a little romance thrown in for good balance.
The Temudjin here is not the brutal dictator and ruthless fighter that many think him to be. Rather, he?s depicted as a leader fairly generous to his men, at least compared to other tribal leaders of his time. He?s a family man and a born romantic; of course he?s also a violent fighter. This positive outlook is quite possibly the result of the particular period in Temudjin?s life that the film covers. By the end of the film he has yet to invade China and the darker aspects of the character may yet be seen if Bodrov is ever given the opportunity to finish his trilogy. For now he?s a mostly heroic figure within the standards of his society.
The acting here for the most part is solid but not extraordinary, mainly just because the roles here aren?t spectacularly challenging. Japanese actor Tadanobu Khulan certainly looks like Genghis Khan and he approaches the part with an appropriate passion. Khulan Chuluun?s work as Temudjin?s wife is certainly impressive given that this is her first credited role; also impressive are the various child actors who play the characters in their early years. Honglei Sun almost steals the show as an adult Jamukha. All the actors should also be commended for working in Khan?s original Mongolian, which adds a nice authenticity to the whole affair.
As far as I can tell, the movie is more historically accurate than not when it comes to the basic outline of Temudgin?s life, but it embellishes freely with the details. Ultimately it feels more like it?s trying to tell the legend of Genghis Khan than what is necessarily the most factual version of the story. It is claimed that part of the reason for this is that the history of Temudjin is not the easiest to pin down, as it was mostly passed down through the oral tradition, which is prone to glorification and exaggeration. I?m mostly fine with this kind of embellishment, as its more important for a film to tell a good story than act as an educational tool. My general rule of thumb is that if I need to look something up to disprove a detail it?s a fair embellishment.
The film has great cinematography by Roger Stoffers and Sergei Trofimov. The cinematographers are aided by beautiful scenery. Mongolia is generally thought of as a cold barren place, but it feels much more alive here than I would have thought. I certainly wouldn?t want to live there, but the Mongolia of this film is certainly a joy to look at. The film also has a nice score by Tuomas Kantelinen that seems to occasionally be influenced by Mongolian throat singing. The film?s dialogue is not beautiful, but one probably shouldn?t expect a rural Mongolian soldier to speak like Shakespeare. The characters talk in an appropriately blue collar way but are hardly inarticulate.
The first few battle scenes here are awesome; they?re fast, intense, and brutal. Bodrov uses mostly real people and avoids generating extras with CGI. The fight choreography in these battles looks really cool but also feels mostly realistic. I do however take issue with the climatic battle, which is much larger and CGI dependent. The fight is well staged enough, but the CGI armies and blood felt less real and more like the poor Hollywood epics of recent like Troy. It?s not a bad battle necessarily, but it isn?t up to the standards of previous action scenes in the film.
There are other problems with the film?s last act as well. Notably the film makes the big mistake of introducing supernatural elements during a plot point, and it certainly doesn?t feel like a necessary change. Earlier the film had a certain metaphorical mysticism involving a wolf and late there is a symbolic resolution involving lighting. These were both fair enough, as they felt more like symbols than literal onscreen magic, but there?s another point where the plot is affected by a monk?s prophesy. This undermined the authenticity of the film and generally seemed unnecessary. It reminded me of a point in Mel Gibson?s Apocalypto where the main character is saved by an ?act of god,? it felt out of place and added an unnecessary element that wasn?t needed. I also take issue with a jarring leap forward in time taken in the last act of the movie that skipped over important elements of Temudjin?s life in order to end the film on a battle scene.
I don?t think I can call this a great film, but it is a cool one. From a filmmaking perspective I have very little to complain about aside from the final battle. Ultimately I may have to wait until this trilogy is finished before I pass final judgment on the project, so far it?s off to a good start.

Many are saying that vampires are the ?in? monsters of the year. On television people are enjoying the flawed, but enjoyable ?True Blood,? and younger audiences are swarming to see heartthrob Robert Pattinson in Twilight. But to hipper, art-house audiences, the vampire flick to see is this Swedish import, Let the Right One In. Within certain circles this film has become the definitive answer to Twilight, after all, what could be a better answer to the cynical marketeering that that teen movie represents then a Swedish vampire movie?

The film is about a boy of about twelve named Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant) who?s living in an apartment complex with his mother who is estranged from his father. There have been a series of murders in the area, and many people are on guard. One night, he sees a girl about his age sitting outside in the foyer of the apartment complex. She says her name is Eli (Lina Leandersson), and she is reluctant to befriend him. Because he?s isolated and lonely, Oskar persists in trying to meet her. Slowly they form a friendship, but there?s a catch: those murders mentioned before, she?s indirectly responsible for them. Her father has been killing people and draining their blood in order to feed Eli, she?s a vampire.

The main strength of Let the Right One In is the director?s very impressive control of tone. The film feels like it?s very much in the cold, slow paced and stoic tradition of Swedish cinema. It?s got a very slow, deliberate pace and the cinematography is very cool and subdued. This kind of style is often used for very arty movies where people whisper a lot, in those kind of movies it can be a bit much, but in an honest to goodness Vampire movie it feels pretty fresh. Also, worth noting is the director?s excellent ability to frame shots, and the film?s confident editing.

The film?s narrative can be seen as a dark fairy tale of sorts, one in the vein of Grimm?s Fairy Tales. At it?s heart it is a film about a boy who has a (very) unconventional friend and about this leading to a strange couple of weeks. This notion of combining horror and fairy tale storytelling has been popular lately, lead by some of Guillermo Del Toro?s more artistically minded films. But then there?s also some more complicated psychology going on under the surface. There?s something a bit off about this Oskar kid, he?s playing around with a knife throughout the film and he has a lot of odd habits like an obsession with true crime stories that someone his age shouldn?t really have an interest in. He?s also struggling with some of the most persistent bullies I?ve ever seen, it was slightly reminicant of the schoolyard struggles of a much older kid in David Cronenberg?s A History of Violence.

There?s more to Eli then meets the eye as well. At first she seems like a confused kid who happens to have found herself afflicted with vampirism. But as the movie progresses this view of her begins to change, midway through she reveals that she?s ?been twelve for a very long time,? quickly she starts to look less like a confused kid and more like a manipulative centuries old vampire.

The vampirism here follows most of the traditional rules; vampires can only go out at night, they can get killed in all the conventional ways, and they can?t enter anyone?s house without permission (hence the title). What?s interesting are some of the clever ways that some of these rules. For example, that rule about Vampires not entering a house without permission has been established before, but this is the first time anyone?s tried to show what happens if they try, and the result is one of the film?s many interesting images. Some of Eli?s powers are also depicted well, particularly the way she occasionally climbs up walls like a spider, and the way she attacks people like a piggyback ride. I won?t give away where she sleeps during the day, but it?s not a coffin.

However, one original aspect of vampire-lore that the film introduces should have been left on the cutting room floor. The film has a rule that suggests that cats can sense vampires and will behave erratically in their presence, a role usually reserved for dogs. This leads to an astoundingly out of place and poorly executed scene, one which brings into light how misguided and underdeveloped a major sub-plot is. This is the one scene in the film that relies on (bad) CGI in a big way, and it ain?t pretty.

The acting by the two kids is quite good. It?s odd that when children are cast in ancillary roles in films they almost always come off as annoying, but they usually tend to do a good job when they have the lead role. Lina Leandersson gives Eli just the right amount of maturity and emptiness in order to feel less then alive, but without taking this too far and seeming gimmicky. Kåre Hedebrant isn?t quite as good, but he was still pretty damn decent in a complicated role. Though I must give low marks to whoever decided to give this kid some sort of crazy Anton Chigurh hair doo from the seventies. I hate to get bent out of shape over anything that?s this shallow, but seriously, this was one distracting head of hair; I don?t know what they were thinking.

Ultimately, it probably is appropriate that this will merely be remembered as ?the art house vampire movie that was better than Twilight.? I haven?t seen Twilight but, if the trailer is any indication, I?m willing to bet that this is indeed significantly better. That said, there maybe isn?t as much to sink one?s teeth into (ha ha) as I had hoped. This is a very well made, very unique take on the vampire movie, but at the end of the day it really just isn?t quite as engaging as it should be. I definitely recommend it if you?re in the mood for this type of thing, maybe not so much if you aren?t already set on the idea. In other words, if you only see one teen vampire movie this year, see Let the Right One In. If you need to see two? well rent The Lost Boys or something.

Many people have hostile reactions to the Academy Awards and their many mistakes, but I?ve always defended them. They provide a nice summation to a year of film, and more importantly it helps a lot of good ?prestige movies? get made every year. However, one thing I don?t like about them is the effect they can occasionally have on critics when they want to lobby for certain pet films; actually that?s not so bad, but it is a problem when they start lobbying against perfectly decent movies that they don?t want to win. I frankly suspect that this is what happened with Clint Eastwood recent film Changeling. In the context of the Cannes Film Festival the film received some pretty good marks, but once it was released in Oscar season critics suddenly turned on it, it currently sits at ?rotten? on the tomatometer.

Why the sudden change of heart? Frankly I suspect it was because of the same kind of anti-lobbying I was talking about earlier, that critics are trying to keep the film from getting to much Oscar buzz because they don?t see it at Oscar worthy. Well, they?re right, this shouldn?t win the Oscar. It?s not very deep, and it?s not very original, but I don?t see what would drive anyone to go so far as to call it bad unless they have completely unreasonable standards.

Set in 1920s Los Angeles, the film tells the true story of Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie), a single mother working as a calling board operator. One night she has to leave her son alone for a night so she can work an extra shift, and when she gets home he?s gone. She runs to the police who are initially uninterested, but eventually they launch an investigation. After many sleepless nights, Collins is finally called and told that the police have found her son. She arrives at the train station only to see that the child they have found is not her son. The police refuse to take no for an answer and assume that the stress of the situation has driven her crazy. Collins embarks on a quest to right this wrong, but finds herself blocked by a wall of corruption in the LAPD.

What first strikes the viewer about the film is its beautiful art direction and set design. The film has a very elaborate period setting; there are dozens of 1920s costumes, cars and streetcars all over the place. The period L.A. on display here is large and alive, and it?s packed with all sorts of old-timey props, it?s a setting very reminiscent of Curtis Hanson?s excellent L.A. Confidential. The sets her are almost too good; they?re so detailed that they can sometimes be a distraction. Surprisingly, this reminded me a lot of another festival favorite, The Wackness. That film was so obsessively hell bent on reminding people what 1994 was like that it felt sort of false, all those pop culture references wouldn?t have jumped out at those characters in those two hours of life as aggressively as the filmmakers would have you believe. Like that film, Changeling veers dangerously close to letting obsessive period detail over power the story, especially in the first act. Eventually though, I settled into the world of the film, and this stopped being a problem.

Angelina Jolie has had an interesting career in that she?s the only woman in Hollywood who could be called an action star, what with her roles in movies like Tomb Raider and Wanted, but she can also hold her own in prestige pictures. Male stars frequently do the same, but when actresses do their slumming it?s usually more in the vein of romantic comedies. Because she so frequently stars in movies that target fourteen year old boys as their key demographic, between that and tabloid stuff it can be easy to not take Jolie seriously, but this is a mistake. When given good material like this Jolie can be a fine actress. Here she gives the kind of old school, movie star performance that we don?t see so often anymore, she seems to be channeling someone like Ingrid Bergman or Joan Crawford in her work here. She has a lot of big emotional scenes with a lot of yelling and crying, a very juicy part for someone looking to show off, on that easily could have been done over the top. However, Jolie is very good at doing these kinds of big moments without going too far and she usually stops just short of overacting.

Last year Jolie reestablished her acting chops with the Michael Winterbottom film A Mighty Heart, where she played Marianne Pearle. Interestingly, her character here is also a woman desperately seeking a missing family member. The two characters are quite similar, they both possess a great inner strength and their both absolutely determined. The difference is that this strength emerges in separate environments; one lives today and the other lives in the 1920s, where strength like this in a woman is scoffed at. If nothing else, Changeling is an excellent portrait of what it was like to be a woman in the bad old days. When Collins tries desperately to explain the situation to the police she?s dismissed as an irrational woman. They also try to paint her as some kind of slut, trying to shirk personal responsibility in order to live a swinging single lifestyle. Eventually the police get to the bottom of the situation simply because they?re more willing to listen to a twelve year old boy as a witness then to a fully grown woman.

The film also has a great supporting cast. John Malkovich has a really nice turn as Gustav Briegleb, a radio minister who wants to help Collins out as part of his larger campaign against corruption in the LAPD. Many films have good villains, but this one has two. Jason Butler Harner plays a psychotic man related to the case, and does so very interestingly, but the antagonist that really leaves an impression is a horrifically corrupt police Captain played by Jeffrey Donovan. There are also a number of child actors in the film who all perform very well for their ages.

Unfortunately, the film is marred by a drawn out third act complete with multiple false endings. It felt like Eastwood simply couldn?t decided what moment to end his film on, and he just kept on going through the history of the case and the life of Christine Collins. Does this ruin the movie? No, not to me anyway. I?m not the type of person who?s going to let twenty imperfect minutes ruin the preceding two hours of solid cinema. I?d maybe have more of a problem if this ending material was outright bad, but it?s not, it?s just kind of excessive.

Changeling is a fine piece of old fashioned cinema. It takes a great yarn, one that would be hard to believe if it wasn?t based on a true story, and tells it very well. It doesn?t reinvent the wheel, and it isn?t any kind of masterpiece. It is however a solid effort. I can understand critics not getting to jazzed up about it, but I highly suspect the motive of those who outright dismiss it for minor flaws, especially if they praised last year?s far more muddled film of similar subject matter Gone Baby Gone. That movie was Mystic River lite. With Changeling, Eastwood has shown exactly how much better he could have made that film.

Movie stars have the interesting role of being loved and hated by the general public. They turn themselves into larger than life figures for a living and are worshiped for it, but the same people who put them up on pedestals are just as quick to throw them under the truck for the inevitable ego they develop. You won?t see Tom Cruise in the advertising for the new Ben Stiller comedy, Tropic Thunder, but he has a pretty prominent cameo in the film; ask him and he?ll tell you all about how the public can turn on someone they once loved for his perceived hubris. Given the way he?s been treated in public, it?s strange to see him enthusiastically taking part in this film, one which may look like a parody of war movies, but that genre is only a secondary target. The real targets of this film?s satirical wrath are movie stars and the industry that creates them.

The film is about the making of a fictional Vietnam War film called ?Tropic Thunder,? that?s become a horribly troubled production because of the rookie director?s inability to control his cast of eccentric actors. This film within a film stars Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller, who also co-writes and directs), a Tom Cruise-esque movie star who?s action fare is no longer drawing in the crowds, forcing him to mold himself into a legitimate actor in prestige films. Tuggman?s co-star is Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.), a respected Australian method actor in the vein of Sean Penn who misguidedly underwent pigment altering surgery in order to play an African American in the film, completely oblivious to the fact that he?s essentially in blackface. On the other side of the respectability spectrum is Jeff "Fats" Portnoy (Jack Black), an overweight actor famous for extremely low-brow comedies, clearly a dig at Eddie Murphy?s recent career path. Also in the fake film are Kevin Sandusky (Jay Baruchel), a young actor who hasn?t been driven insane with fame, and Alpa-Chino (Brandon T. Jackson), a rapper starring in the film.

With this war epic looking like a bigger financial disaster by the day, the film?s director (Steve Coogan) is put under pressure to finish the film or have it shut down. Desperate, he decides to take the insane advice of the film?s author, a grizzled handless Vietnam veteran (Nick Nolte), and decides to drop the actors into an uninhabited jungle filed with hidden cameras and explosives in hopes of getting naturalistic performances from the actors. What he doesn?t realize is that the jungle he dropped them into is the territory of a real drug cartel who the actors mistake for actors in this elaborate experiment in guerrilla filmmaking.

Last week saw the release of Pineapple Express, the newest film produced by Judd Apatow, whose team is the dominant force in film comedy right now. But the Apatow group wasn?t always on top, throughout the late 90s and early 2000s film comedy was owned by a group that has been dubbed ?The Frat Pack.? This core group consisted of Will Ferrell, Ben Stiller, Jack Black, Luke and Owen Wilson, and Vince Vaughn. There seemed like no end to this groups fortune and their success peaked with 2005?s Wedding Crashers, that same year Apatow came out of nowhere and put out The Forty-Year Old Virgin, since then the frat pack has never really been the same. I didn?t think there was another good film left in the frat pack, but this is a real shock, the first Ben Stiller movie I?ve seen in eight years and it?s really giving a great Apatow production a run for its money.

One really can?t help but compare these two comedies being released over two consecutive weeks in August. While Pineapple Express did the trick of giving a stupid concept to an overqualified director, Tropic Thunder takes the opposite approach and has a traditionally low brow director handling a fairly smart satirical concept. Ben Stiller should be given a lot of credit for coming up with this concept and for making a movie as funny as he did, one can?t help but think this would have had even more punch to it in the hands of a braver, more sophisticated satirist like a Jason Reitman, a Trey Parker, or even a Spike Lee.

The movie never leaves reality to the point of a Zucker Brothers or Mel Brooks film, but it doesn?t have the kind of relative reality featured in something like Knocked Up or Meet the Parents either, its tone is somewhere between the two extremes. Despite the somewhat brainy concept and digs at flatulence comedy, the film still finds itself going for gross out moments and random absurdist pieces. Mind you these are moments, not the norm, but they?re all the more jarring because of it. Also, as brainy as the Hollywood satire is, it?s anything but subtle in nature. The message is right there for everyone to see; people in blockbusters are in it for the money and people in independent movies are only in it to pamper their egos. That is a pretty cynical message overall, and Stiller inelegantly rubs it in the audiences face to the point where it would be tiresome if he hadn?t made it so damn funny along the way.

That?s the thing about Tropic Thunder, while it really is pretty flawed, the jokes keep coming and the film is ultimately so funny that it?s kind of hard to really complain. One could commend Stiller for not trying to have his cake and eat it too, he clearly decided that making the audience laugh is the number one priority and was willing to sacrifice the overall movie to make sure that goal was accomplished. David Gordon Green took the opposite approach with Pineapple Express and decided to put breathing room between the jokes to give the film a more relaxed feel and build up to larger laughs. In other words, the comedy in Pineapple Express is quality over quantity and Tropic Thunder is quantity over quality, and it comes down to the viewer to decide which form they prefer.

If nothing else, Stiller has put together one hell of a cast here. The man who steals the show, by far, is Robert Downey Jr. who?s clearly having a great year. What Stiller is doing with this role is a major gamble as it could easily be misconstrued as something extremely offensive. Downey?s character is such a character actor he believes he can play an African American; as a result Robert Downey Jr. spends the whole film in a realistic makeup to look like an African American. It is important to note that Downey isn?t playing a black guy; he?s playing someone else playing a black guy, an important separation that helps diminish the offensive nature of the role. Many have said that Robert Downey Jr. deserves an Oscar for his work here, but I wouldn?t go that far. He works hard and that work is evident, but at the end of the day all he?s doing is putting on makeup and talking in a funny voice, granted that?s probably harder to do that than I make it out to be but still I don?t exactly see this as a performance for the ages.

To cut down at the offensiveness of that role an actual African American performer is present to undercut Kirk Lazarus? nonsense at every turn and make fun of his absurd role. Brandon T. Jackson plays that straight man role well, but I can?t help but think the conflict between the two actors could have been played up more. Also acting as a straight man is Jay Baruchel who helps the film immensely with his reactions to the craziness around him. Jack Black is of course a pretty big star to be playing second fiddle in a movie like this, his character probably isn?t the funniest but I think he does the best he can with the role and I found the way he played his character in the fictional film to be rather amusing. There are also a number of good performances by people behind the camera of the fictional movie. Tom Cruise has a hilarious cameo as an Ari Gould- style profane movie financier, Steve Coogan works pretty well as the fictional film?s director, Matthew McConaughey has a nice role as an agent, and Nick Nolte has a good turn as a tough guy veteran who turns out to be as full of it as the actors in the movie.

Oddly, the weakest character turns out to be the one played by Ben Stiller himself. Tugg Speedman doesn?t really have a comedic hook the way Robert Downey Jr.?s method actor does or Jack Black?s drug addict does, but he also isn?t a straight man like Jackson or Baruchel. Stiller also doesn?t really look like much of an action star and it?s hard to imagine him staring in something like ?Scorcher VI: Global Meltdown.? Stiller clearly tries hard but really doesn?t have the same kind of material to work with as he gave many of his co-stars. Some of his character?s quirks, like a desire to adopt a child feel underdeveloped and rather strange as a result and his insecurities are never really explained, just assumed to exist.

With Robert Downey Jr.?s crazy blackface antics, one would think that any misplaced controversy would come from the NAACP or someone like al Sharpton, but they both seemed to get the joke. Instead the group that?s decided to launch a boycott against the movie are the special Olympics and ARC, who both view a sub-plot in the movie as offensive to the mentally disabled. The sub-plot involves clips from Tugg Speedman?s previous film ?Simple Jack,? in which he played a mentally handicapped man in an insanely over the top manner in what is clearly a cynical attempt at getting an Oscar. The message isn?t any more subtle here than anything else in the movie; that actors exploit stories about the handicapped in order to show off acting skills and advance their careers. I can only think of three explanations for this silly boycott A. the organizations in question are truly oblivious to the movies message, which I doubt B. They judged the movie without seeing it and don?t want to lose face by backing down, or C. They?re just as full of it as the characters in the movie and are just trying to get attention. Either way the jokes on them because Stiller?s script has more sympathy for the mentally disabled than many of the movies that they let pass without controversy.

Tropic Thunder is clearly a good comedy, it has major problems, but it?s simply too funny and has too many smart ideas to really stay mad at it for long. Still, I can?t help but think it could have been a whole lot more, and I don?t really have too many people to blame than Ben Stiller. It almost feels like he was too afraid to make a straight up satire and felt he needed to pad it with a lot of unneeded but admittedly funny lowbrow material. I think the movie could have done without a grossout gag related about a severed head, an absurd twelve year old drug lord, and a weird sub-plot about a tivo. Still it probably isn?t anywhere near as flawed as the Love Gurus and Norbits of the world and if I told Ben Stiller I laughed through most of the movie he?d probably think his mission was accomplished. Fair enough.

Gus Van Sant has had a very interesting if not always successful decade. Ever since he made Finding Forrester in 2000 he?s abandoned mainstream cinema and started experimenting with a new style of cinema. This style involved long takes, improvisational dialogue, and minimal exposition. The style began with 2002?s Gerry about a hiking trip gone wrong which starred Matt Damon and Casey Affleck. Van Sant further evolved the style in 2003?s Elephant, the first film to deal with the columbine massacre, which abandoned the use of professional actors. Elephant was probably the most successful Van Sant movie of this period; it was widely acclaimed and won the Palm D?or at the Cannes Film Festival. Van Sant followed Elephant up with Last Days, a fictionalized account of the death of Curt Cobain, a pretentious and boring film I had no patience for. Now Van Sant has further evolved his style with Paranoid Park.
The film follows a teenager named Alex (Gabe Nevins) involved in a skateboarding sub-culture. Alex spends a lot of time going to an underground skate park called ?Paranoid Park? where he meets a lot of people who are deeper into this world then he is. However, this isn?t one of those movies about the dangers of some youth sub-culture, in fact that?s really just the background to the larger story. I don?t want to give away too much, but a security guard has been murdered (this is revealed very early on) and Alex clear had something to do with the crime.
The common theme among all these experimental Gus Van Sant films has been internalized emotion, something that?s very true to life. The films do not try to emphasize with their subjects, only to watch them. As such these are some particularly voyeuristic pieces of work. Gerry was about internalized desperation, Elephant was about internalized rage, and Last Days was about internalized depression. Paranoid Park also fits well into this theme as it?s about internalized guilt. Alex clearly feels really bad about his part in the death of this security guard but he doesn?t completely brake down in some sort of Oscar bait tantrum, instead the film shows him trying to go on with his usual life in spite of the weight on his shoulders. The film is all about watching how he reacts to the situation, watching the subtle nuances of his reactions.
The film is populated entirely by non-professional actors that Van Sant reportedly found on Myspace; these non-actors bring a definite realism to the film. Firstly, everyone is the correct age, you?ll find no 28 year olds playing teenagers. More impotently they?re able to feel like normal young people, they?re more qualified to convey the uncertainties and insecurities that plague people at this age. Gabe Nevins was a good find, he has a lot to do here, and he makes it work. The supporting actors are also good, Taylor Momsen is very good as Alex?s girlfriend and Jake Miller is also good as his friend.
The visual style does have a lot in common with the last three films, it has a deliberately down to earth and somewhat murky look. It has more in common with the bluish urban hues of Elephant than the more rustic looks of Gerry or Last Days. The film is shot in Academy ratio color 35mm for most of its duration and uses very messy 8mm color film during a few seemingly disconnected skateboard scenes.
Bu there are also stylistic differences from the last films Van Sant has made. The long takes are reduced significantly and the film also uses a non chronological structure. This structure seems random, but that isn?t to say there?s no rhyme or reason to it. The chronology is clearly planned but there?s not a rigid pattern to it. This is one of the film?s more enjoyable aspects; it?s interesting how seemingly confusing scenes are shown twice and the audiences perceptions of the same moments change so much based on context.
While on the last few films Van Sant was clearly experimenting with visuals, here he actually seems more interested in experimenting with sound. The music choices all seem very strange, they don?t seem to fit but they do contribute to a certain mood. The film also has a voice over, which is something that would have no place in any of the other movies in this style series. But this isn?t like many voice overs, it?s supposed to be a reading of a confessionary note he?s writing to himself, so the grammar at times deliberately feels clunky and often the voice over really raises more questions than it answers. There are also some odd sound mixing quirks, like one scene where Alex?s jumbled thoughts can be heard on the sound track, each coming from a different surround channel. Not all of this works of course, that?s the nature of experimentation really.
One could complain that the film?s subject matter seems a little dated. Skateboarding was a pretty pre-millennial phenomenon, which may not seem like long ago to adults, but the film?s star was about eight years old at the turn of the century. Of course there are still skate boarders out there, but this still doesn?t seem like it?s on the cutting edge of youth culture. That said, most of the rest of the depictions of youth culture do ring true. Most of the slang and dialogue patterns are accurate and up to date, it?s not elegant or overwritten, but it does sound real.
Experimenting is not an easy thing to do, and it doesn?t always bring optimal results, but somebody has to do it. Gus Van Sant is clearly narrowing in on a style that really will work, but he?s still not quite there. This is a lot better than Last Days, but it doesn?t quite live up to the heights of Elephant, or even Gerry. Still, there is a lot of interesting material here, I encourage Gus Van Sant to keep experimenting and I can recommend this film to adventurous cinema goers.

In 1993, a convenience store clerk risked his life savings on a seemingly mad attempt at making a movie. It was shot on a shoestring budget with cheap 16mm black and white film stock. None of its actors had ever been in a film before and most of the action was in a pair of convenience stores. What that film, Clerks, did have was a witty, charming, dirty, but most of all hilarious script. With nothing except a great script to propel it, Clerks became a comedy classic, and its writer director Kevin Smith became a hero to millions of fellow comic book geeks stuck in menial jobs. Anyone with even a little bit of knowledge about independent cinema has already heard this story many times, but it bears repeating. Aside from maybe Robert Rodriguez I can hardly name another director who?s successfully managed to launch a lasting career on a credit card funded movie. Clerks was more than a hilarious movie to me and many others, it was the first time I?d seen a movie show a certain type of person without mocking them, it was a movie that didn?t come from a condescending Hollywood type but from ?one of us? so to speak.

I?m willing to admit that Kevin Smith is someone I tend to geek out about, the guy?s voice just speaks to me. However, I don?t show the guy blind love, he?s certainly had his career ups and downs. Mallrats and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back are both sort of fun and have their moments, but are really unsubstantial and just kind of stupid. Chasing Amy was certainly a sign of maturity and worked well on a narrative level, but suffered from just not being very funny. Dogma, however, had a refreshing take on religion and was also very funny, it was probably the best movie Smith had made since Clerks. Then Smith made Clerks II, which seemed like a bad idea, but the movie ended up blowing me away. Clerks II may well have surpassed even the original Clerks I loved it so much. After that career high I was excited to see what Smith would do next, and this anticipation was increased when Smith announced he?d be working with none other than Seth Rogen, whose been taking the comedy world by storm.

Zack and Miri Make a Porno doesn?t take place in the View Askewniverse, or even New Jersey for that matter. The film is set Monreville, PA a town that any zombie enthusiast knows the significance of. The title characters are a pair of platonic friends who live together in a cheap apartment. It?s important to emphasize that Zack (Seth Rogen) and Miri (Elizabeth Banks) are not lovers, just old high school friends splitting the rent. The two of them work low paying jobs and are beginning to see their bills pile up. The day of their high school reunion their water and soon their electricity goes out for lack of payment, leaving them close to homeless. After meeting a gay porn star (Justin Long in a small but memorable cameo) at the reunion, Zack suddenly gets the bright idea that they can make enough money to pay their bills by making an amateur porno movie, after all this is something that requires next to no skill to produce and has a large market. Zack convinces his coffee shop co-worker Delaney (Craig Robinson) to fund the film with the money he was saving up for a flat screen TV in exchange for a return and an opportunity to judge the ?auditions.? Soon they hire a camera operator (Jeff Anderson), a male star (Jason Mewes), and a pair of women stars (Traci Lords & Katie Morgan, both real life porn stars). This motley crew assembles in a warehouse, ready to begin filming their porn, a dirty sci-fi parody called (what else) Star Whores.

The casting of Seth Rogen is particularly interesting because of his major involvement in the Judd Apatow movement of comedy, though bear in mind that apatow himself had no involvement in the film. It?s interesting, though hardly surprising, that Smith has fully embraced this comedic movement. One could almost see Smith as a forerunner, even a direct influence on the Apatow comedies with their mix of heartfelt story and raunchy humor; they could almost be mistaken for Kevin Smith movies if it weren?t for the absence of pop culture references. Fortunately, Rogen hasn?t just been cast because he?s been popular recently, he?s been cast here for the same reason he?s always been cast: because he?s good at playing a lovable loser.

Elizabeth Banks is almost as important to the film?s success; she has some genuine chemistry with Rogen and can really spout out these fun Smith lines well. Banks? character is very similar to the one played by Rosario Dawson in Clerks II, and her performance is almost as good as Dawson?s. Craig Robinson is also a really cool sidekick in this, his roles here and in Pineapple Express show there?s a lot more to him than his somewhat subdued recurring role on ?The Office.? It was also nice to see a couple of Kevin Smith veterans getting some roles here. Jeff Anderson, who played Randal in the Clerks movies, has a small role as the porno?s cameraman. Jason Mewes, who played the role of Jay in six of Kevin Smith?s seven previous films, is here as the male star of the porno they?re making. Neither of these actors are reaching that far from the roles that made them famous, but it?s nice to see them doing something else just the same, and they are fine in these roles. The two real porn stars however, I probably could have done without, they?re basically stunt casting and neither of them bring much authenticity to they?re roles. They aren?t embarrassingly bad or anything, but professional actors probably could have brought more to the roles.

Zack and Miri Make a Porno has an interesting tone, it?s almost like a cross between the serious relationship drama of Chasing Amy, and the raunch we saw during the bachelor party scene toward the end of Clerks II. One could say that this is a film that walks a line between two extremes in Kevin Smith?s work, crude humor and sentimental relationship stories. All of his previous movies tended to fall to one extreme or the other; here they get almost equal time. This balance is definitely one of the movie?s strengths; it keeps the movie from being pointless like Mallrats, but also makes for a much more funny experience than Chasing Amy. What?s more, the movie manages to be sentimental in a much more naturalistic than some of the speechifying that came real close to being a problem toward the end of Clerks II.

One of the film?s surprises is how much Kevin Smith has improved behind the camera. Funny as Clerks was, its ?visual style? was pretty close to being downright amateurish. With bigger budgets Smith was perfectly able to keep his movies completely competent but they were fairly standard affairs visually. This has never been much of a distraction, these are not movie that require major talent in the visual department, and Smith certainly belongs behind the camera in his own movies. Smith has been a lot like a singer songwriter who maybe doesn?t have the greatest voice but is still the right person to sing his own songs simply because that?s the voice the words belong to. However, with this movie Smith is really better than just competent. It?s not bravura filmmaking by any stretch, but it isn?t something that needs handicapping either.

I was, however, also surprised at just how graphic the movie was. Of course Smith?s movies have always been somewhat dirty and something with the word ?porno? in the title wasn?t going to be wholesome, but this was still a bit more graphic then I had expected. Smith?s movies have always traded in very frank and graphic sexual dialogue, and there?s plenty of that on display here, but before he almost never actually showed anything; this time but there is definitely sex and nudity in the scenes where they?re filming the porno. Bear in mind that this is a film put out by a major studio and not itself a porno, in fact it doesn?t show anything that wasn?t in P.T. Anderson?s porn industry flick Boogie Nights, but it was surprising all the same.

I?m not a prude, I wasn?t offended by the material, but I got the distinct impression that Smith was actively trying to shock the audience, but to what end? Possibly he was trying to simply leave the audience not knowing how to react, thus allowing them to fill the void with laughter, but I?m not sure this really worked as well as he was hoping. The whole thing may well work better on less jaded audiences who haven?t seen the likes of Shortbus and The Dreamers. What?s more the movie does completely stumble over the line it was walking during a defecation joke that I found simply crass and juvenile.

Ultimately it is not in the sex scenes that the film works, but in everything going on around them, particularly the dialogue, which is as good if not better than it was in the rest of Smith?s body of work. If you?ve seen the rest of Smith?s movies you?ll pretty much know what to expect from the script?s fast quips and general fearlessness. There aren?t as many pop culture references as there used to be, there are a few, but that?s not the focus. The laugh quotient is not at Clerks II levels, or at the levels of some Apatow films, but there are belly laughs to be found even if they?re not as fast and furious as some of the competition. Really, I?m maybe being hard on the film because of high expectations. This is a lot funnier than the average comedy, but between Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Pineapple Express, and even Tropic Thunder the bar for R-rated comedy has been set pretty high this year. Maybe I?ve just finally had my fill of comedies where slackers curse and screw a lot. This has a lot of the elements for a great Kevin Smith movie, but it just didn?t have that extra punch it needed to really stand out, especially with such strong competition recently.

The Fall is directed by a fellow who only goes by the name Tarsem. I always have something of an irrational suspicion of anyone that only goes by one name, but I must say this guy fascinates me. Tarsem (real name Tarsem Singh Dhandwar) was a director of music videos (including the famous R.E.M. ?Losing My Religion? video!) before he came out with the Jennifer Lopez vehicle The Cell in 2000. I rented The Cell once, but was never able to finish it due to a scratched up disc that crapped out about halfway into it. What I saw was very visually innovative, and I?m not sure why I never got around to checking out the rest of it. Tarsem wouldn?t make another film for another six years, a work called The Fall, which debuted at the Toronto international film festival way back in 2006 and proceeded to sit on the shelf for almost two years for one reason or another. Finally in the summer of 2008 the film would see a release with ?presented by? credits going to fellow music video alums David Fincher and Spike Jonze. I finally caught up to it shortly after its DVD release.

The film begins in 1920s Hollywood and follows a 10 year old girl named Alexandria (Catinca Untaru), an immigrant with a broken arm staying at a hospital. There she meets Roy Walker (Lee Pace), a stuntman who?s bedridden after a stunt gone wrong. After a little chat, Roy begins to tell Alexandria an elaborate fantasy story, this story within a story takes up a lot of the film?s screen time and it the source of most of the film?s visual imagination. This story is set in some kind of 18th century near east fantasy realm, and follows five warriors who all want bloody revenge against the evil Governor Odious.

The catch to all this is that Roy isn?t really committed to the story he?s telling, he?s doing it as part of a Scheherazade scheme in order to trick Alexandria into bringing him morphine. He begins by telling a pirate story, but quickly changes it to something else when Alexandria tells him she doesn?t like pirates. This is a clear signal to the audience that Roy is making this story up as he goes, and this makes all the difference because it gives Tarsem the ability to take the story in all kinds of crazy directions in order to justify his visual imagination, and there?s an explanation for it in the story.

These visuals do indeed live up to Tarsem?s reputation. The film?s art direction is really creative, and the costumes are absolutely outlandish. I also really like how Tarsem is willing to really pull the camera really far and let the visuals play out in massive scale. This is a rare thing in this world of close-ups and small scope. I?d call the film completely original if it weren?t for the fact that Terry Gilliam?s The Adventures of Baron Munchausen weren?t so similar to it in style, tone, and set up.

As Roy gets to be in a worse and worse mood, the story within a story begins to get darker, but that?s about as deep as this project gets. Ultimately, The Fall seems like a fairly shallow film. The story within a story doesn?t amount to much, it just sort of exists. Shallow though it may be, the film works very well in the moment, it?s a fun movie to watch and the production design is pretty neat. For this reason, I?m more than willing to recommend the film, but I don?t think it?s going to have a whole lot of shelf life.

Woody Allen is, at this point less of a director than he is a cinematic institution, the second longest running one after the James Bond series. Every time a Woody Allen movie comes out one has a fairly good idea of what to expect, even when he seems to deliberately hit one into left field. Few Woody Allen movies went as far into left field as 2005?s Match Point, a film that did feel like the work of the same auteur but was in no way a comedic work. His 2006 follow up, Scoop, made it seem like moving his location to Europe would be the only permanent change to Allen?s style. However his latest film, Cassandra?s Dream, is clearly a return to the subject matter and tone that made Match Point such a surprise.
The film is set again set in London and begins with two brothers buying a boat they intend to name Cassandra?s Dream. One of the brothers, Ian (Ewan McGregor), has been working at his father?s restaurant for years, but plans to eventually leave when he has enough to invest in a California hotel chain. The other brother, Terry (Collin Farrell), works at a mechanic?s shop and has serious problems with gambling, alcoholism, and pill popping. Terry eventually finds himself over his head in gambling debt and Ian finds himself needing money fast in order to woo an actress he met named Angela (Hayley Atwell). In order to solve these problems the two go to their rich uncle Howard (Tom Wilkinson), but what he asks for in return is more than either bargained for.
Before I get into the pros and cons of the movie itself, allow me to vent about the Weinstein Companies botched distribution of the film. Woody Allen is supposed to put out one movie for every calendar year, that?s a sacred tradition, and Allen himself has lived up to his end of the bargain since 1982. Cassandra?s Dream was done early enough to have premiered at a festival in June of 2007, but for some greed inspired reason the Weinstein Company (kings of overly patient release schedules) held its American release until January of 2008. Thankfully, another distributor called On Pictures released the film in October of 2007 in Spain, so it could technically be considered a 2007 movie, but for all practical purposes the Weinstein?s screwed up an important tradition and should be punished for it, which is why I waited for the DVD release to see the movie.
Ultimately, Cassandra?s Dream has a very simple structure. It establishes two characters, puts them in an extreme situation and compares how the two characters react to it. The characters are not simple necessarily, but they aren?t wildly complex either and they develop in very predictable ways. The whole movie is rather predictable really, that?s just the nature of this type of morality play. When I say these things are simple it?s not necessarily a slight so much as a description.
This simple story is simply told as well. Woody Allen?s minimalist visual style is as evident as ever here. Reportedly this is the first Woody Allen film to include a score mixed in stereo; that should give you a clue as to how much Allen ever cares to innovate technologically. Of course as with every Allen film one shouldn?t mistake his lack of technical ambition as a lack of technical skill. Like Allen?s other films the technical elements here are all completely competent, just very simple.
Collin Farrell and Ewan McGregor are probably the film?s biggest problems. Neither is distractingly bad, but one gets the feeling that they may have been miscast. Throughout the film I began to think the movie would have been better served if they had switched roles, if Farrell were to be the aspiring playboy and had McGregor been the blue collar worker with flaws but a good heart. Tom Wilkinson also didn?t particularly impress me, it feels like he agreed to the small but vital part on a whim and sort of phoned it in on the set.
Cassandra?s Dream is a perfectly watchable and moderately interesting drama, though I was unsatisfied by its ending and looking back there was nothing really extraordinary about it at all. This probably represents what mid-range Woody Allen may look like in this new era of his career. In other words Cassandra?s Dream is to Match Point as Everyone Says I Love You is to Hannah and Her Sisters.

The Holocaust was an almost unthinkable tragedy that was unparalleled by any event that occurred during the twentieth century. It?s understandable why an event of such magnitude would invite film adaptation, there?s a lot of drama to it and it?s generally an important part of history which deserves to be discussed and remembered. However, I?ve found a lot of the films made about it have had serious problems. Sophie?s Choice was strong whenever it focused on the event, but the film as a whole was torpedoed by a horrible framing story that dominates most of its running time. Schindler?s List, while strong at certain points, generally lacked focus and despite its colossal runtime it failed to develop any of its characters except for Schindler. The strongest movie about the Holocaust was probably Roman Polanski?s The Pianist, which wisely maintained its focus on the title character and did not distract itself with material that was ancillary to that story. All of these projects were at least respectable, but there have been plenty of less than reputable movies on the subject like Life is Beautiful, Jakob the Liar, and the like. That?s why I get queasy whenever one of these projects comes along, whenever a filmmaker is dealing with a subject as powerful as the Holocaust the potential is open for distraction and manipulation. That?s why I was pleasantly surprised to find that Stephen Daldry?s The Reader, while hardly a perfect drama, was not really about the Holocaust and it did not unnecessarily dwell on human suffering.

It starts in 1995 and focuses on a German lawyer named Michael Berg (Ralph Fiennes). Quickly, the film flashes back to 1958, when Michael (now being played by David Kross, not to be confused with comedian David Cross), is fifteen and living in Neustadt. On a rainy day, Michael finds himself getting very ill and throwing up on the doorstep of a random apartment building. A tram conductor in her thirties named Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet) notices this sick adolescent and helps him home. Once he recovers, Michael returns to her building to thank her for her kind turn. The next thing he knows, Hanna?s standing behind him naked, banging commences. The two have an affair for about a year or so, and during their nightly screw-sessions she asks Michael to read some of his books to her. Eventually she comes to her senses, cuts the humping off and moves out of town without leaving a forwarding address. Michael eventually goes to Law School and it would seem that he will finally move on with his life, but soon he?ll run into Hanna again and learn a dark secret about her past.

I?ll admit that that plot description is rather glib, but when a movie takes itself this seriously you really can?t help but talk about it like that. This is very much a story that would only come from a novel, that is to say a novel with a capital ?N,? the kind that focuses on characters and symbolism rather than plot. In this case it was a 1995 German language novel by Bernhard Schlink that Oprah apparently liked a lot. Much like play adaptations, movies based on these kind of novels tend to have a very distinctive and slightly lifeless feel to them. Producer Anthony Minghella?s 1996 Oscar winning film The English Patient had a similar novelish tone to it, though this project never reaches that level of literary stuffiness.

The film?s reputation and advertising will have you thinking about it as a holocaust movie starring Ralph Fiennes, but there are no scenes set before 1958 and David Kross has a lot more screen time than Mr. Fiennes. Anyone ready to guess what Hanna Schmitz? dark secret is yet? The movie is probably better if you don?t know, but everyone else in the world has given it away by now so I won?t dance around it any further. The chick was a former Nazi who worked as a guard in a concentration camp. A good hour of the film is dedicated to the affair between the title character and the former-nazi twice his age, and the second half depicts the effects that this dark secret has on his life. In other words, the kid humps a Nazi for a year and then spends forty years moping about it. At a certain point I was about ready to shout ?you bagged a Nazi, get over it!? at the screen, but my sense of theater etiquette prevented such an outburst.

The acting is really what saves this film, and without really talented performers this wouldn?t have even begun to work. Kate Winslet is clearly the standout; her role is very demanding and if she had overplayed it the film probably would have bordered on unwatchable. In the early portions she needs to show that she has a haunted past and cold demeanor while simultaneously seeming normal enough for Michael to fall in love with. Winslet easily could have tried to play for more sympathy, and if she had the whole movie would have fallen apart. David Kross is also a nice discovery, he hadn?t been in anything I?d heard of before this, but he certainly brought what was needed to his character here. Like I said before, Ralph Fiennes isn?t really in this all that much, but he is pretty good when he is on screen.

Does the film really deserve the massive amount of sarcasm I?ve directed toward it? Probably not, but something about this movie just encourage that kind of response, it takes itself really, really, seriously, but it?s literary source give it a certain artificiality that makes it hard to really love it as it wants to be loved. All the film?s symbolism and psychology probably works a lot better on the page where it can be pondered with a certain detachment, but when you?re watching it on the screen it just seems kind of fake and pretentious. But the film?s problems can?t all be blamed on the potential inadaptability of its source material, I think last year?s Atonement succeeded marvelously where this failed, in fact The Reader kind of reminds me of how good that movie was. Most people were pretty shocked to see this nominated for Best Picture, and many fans of The Dark Knight and The Wrestler have jumped on this film for stealing their slot. I share their anger, but most of the wrath should probably be saved for Frost/Nixon, which was a lot more manipulative and didn?t have this film?s control of tone. I?ll probably never be able to really enjoy it, but it?s mostly put together well, and as far as deathly serious dramas go you can do a lot worse. Recommended, but mainly for the acting.

In terms of mainstream blockbusters, the 2000s have clearly been the decade of the comic book movie. Since X-Men came out in 2000, there has been a plethora of comic book superhero movies. Some of these movies like the X-Men series, the Spider-Man series, and Batman Begins have been absolutely solid. Other comic book titles like Daredevil, Fantastic Four, and Ghost Rider haven?t worked nearly as well. The latest Marvel franchise to come to screen, Iron Man, seemed like a bit of a wild card. As a comic Iron Man was an all right title, but he?s always been a second rate character, also it?s director Jon Favreau was not a proven effects director. However, things began to look better when Robert Downy Jr. was announced, which seemed like brilliant casting, the trailer was funny, and the effects seemed solid.

The film centers on Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), a brilliant scientist who runs a major weapons business. On a business trip to Afghanistan Stark?s convoy is attacked and Stark finds himself held hostage by terrorists. Stark is forced by these terrorists to build a missile, instead he uses the materials provided to build an armor suit to escape. Upon returning home Stark begins to question his role as a weapons manufacturer, eventually he decides to use his powers for good and builds an improved version of his escape armor in order to fight evil.

As I previously established, there have been quite a lot of superhero movies lately, and any filmmaker trying to make another has the challenge of bringing something new to the table. Favreau, the writer of Made and Swingers, didn?t seem like the type to make a superhero epic. It turns out that what Favreau was good at in his previous films was exactly what Iron Man needed to set itself apart, namely dry witty dialogue and attitude. Before his epiphany Stark is a snaky millionaire cynic, a sarcastic narcissist prone to funny one-liners. He?s not unlike the characters in Swingers, flawed witty people. Robert Downy Jr. is absolutely perfect for this role, coming off similarly articulate and funny performances in A Scanner Darkly and Zodiac.

Stark?s position as a millionaire arms manufacturer also allows the film a certain degree of unpretentious, satirical social commentary. The film examines the nature of capitalism and the effects it can have in war zones. Stark choosing to sacrifice profits for what he sees as his company?s ethical responsibility is an interesting moral, and there is also a statement tin the fact that his stockholders see this attitude as a sign of mental illness. Of course, this isn?t Syriana, it?s a comic book blockbuster and this social commentary will probably just go over the heads of those not interested in looking for it. It is however there and it is an interesting look at a similar statement about the military industrial conflict made by the original Marvel comic book that took place against the backdrop of the Vietnam War as opposed to the war in Afghanistan.

This satiric nature along with the witty dialogue do give the film some teeth and set it apart to a good degree which makes both elements important as this could easily have felt identical to other similar films. In fact the film?s tone is quite clearly borrowed almost entirely from the Spider-Man series. This style is closer to a silver age comic book world that the darker, weightier world?s of Batman Begins or X-Men. It is stylistically truer to the spirit of it?s original comic book source material than either the Batman or X-Men franchises, which is neither a good or bad thing, but is a major stylistic decision.

Iron Man is a character that translates to film surprisingly well, one would have thought such an artificial character would have lead to a poor CGI fest. However, it actually works pretty well because, as last year?s Transformers showed, metallic technology looks better as CGI than organic flesh. This can be seen in one scene where Iron Man, who looked photorealistic when covered in his suit, took his glove off to reveal a CGI hand which looked much more fake than his metal armor. That odd bit of fake looking effects was most definitely an exception in a film whose effects are otherwise completely solid.

The supporting cast is solid, but Downey Jr overshadows it in many ways. Jeff Bridges is clearly having a lot of fun playing Obadiah Stane, Stark?s mentor and buisness partner. Bridges goes with a shaved head and beard, and has some interesting line delivery. Gwyneth Paltrow plays Stark?s long suffering assistant reminicant of John Gielgud?s butler character in the 1981 Dudley Moore vehicle Arthur. There is a certain sexual tention between Stark and the Paltrow charcter, but it never blooms into a full on romance which is probably being saved for a sequel. Paltrow is good but is wasted to a certain degree her character never feels tacked on, but isn?t a role large enough to be in the league of a major actress like Paltrow. Terrence Howard is also featued as a military Colonel named James Rhodes who comicbook fans know will eventually become a sidekick of sorts called War Machine. Like Paltrow, Howard feels wasted in this instalment, where he has little role other then to be established for future sequels.

Saving things for future sequels is really the biggest problem Iron Man has as a film unto itself. In many ways the film simply feels like a setup for a future franchise so that Hollywood can make yet another trilogy to carry them through the next six years. Like many first instalments in franchises like this, the film gets really bogged down in origin story and ends up without much of a superhero story to make an action film out of once the character is established and gets his powers. Consequently the film suffers in its third act in a big way where we are treated with a half-assed plot twist that isn?t that surprising and doesn?t stand up to scrutiny. We also see the result of some clunky foreshadowing.

Iron Man, like the comic it?s based on, will probably be doomed to be the middle child of the Marvel Universe. It never reaches the heights of the Spider-Man or X-Men franchises, nor does it stoop to the depths of Fantastic Four or Ghost Rider. Hopefully the inevitible sequel will be able to hit the ground running and kick ass, as is often the case with superhero franchises. It?s a solid, fun film even if it?s ultimately lightwheight and not wildly original. It?s worth seeing for Robert Downy Jr. alone as this is one of the few superhero films where the secret identity is significantly more interesting than the superhero, and that?s not really a bad thing.

When Michael Moore made Farenheit 9/11 in late 2004, George W. Bush was the most divisive person in the world. Now, that probably isn?t the case. With approval ratings in the twenties it?s probably safe to guess that a majority of people can finally agree that ?dubya? is a horrible president that should never have been elected. In case you haven?t guessed already, I?m no fan of our current president, and I never have been. I?m making my bias clear right up front, unless you?ve had your head in the sand for the last eight years there?s no way to look at something like this without bias. Oliver Stone is not a filmmaker known to keep his head in the sand; he?s completely upfront with his biases, and that?s what makes his movies so interesting. The George W. Bush presidency is the perfect subject for Oliver Stone to do his magic, and low and behold here?s an Oliver Stone directed biopic about our forty third president.

Many people lump Oliver Stone?s JFK and Nixon as peas in the same pod, but they?re really very different films. JFK is not a biopic; the title character doesn?t even have a speaking role. Nixon is a full fledged biopic, though despite being over three hours long it focused almost exclusively on tricky Dick?s political career. With W. Oliver Stone examines a president?s entire adult life and in half as long a running time. The film generally focuses on three separate periods of Bush?s life: his life as a hellraising college student, his time as a businessman and Texas politician, and his presidency.

Playing the titular character is Josh Brolin, who?s coming off a great 2007 in which he acted in Grindhouse, American Gangster, and No Country for Old Men. I liked the choice of Brolin for the role from the moment I heard about it and he doesn?t disappoint. Doing a George W. Bush impression isn?t that hard, just about every two bit impressionist in the country does him. The trick here was probably just not getting too carried away with the impression, to not focus on the impression to the detriment of the acting in a given scene. If Brolin had focused too much on the impression the movie could have devolved into a ?Saturday Night Live? sketch.

The other various cast members also need to be able to make a balance between impression and acting, and some do it better than others. James Cromwell doesn?t really look much like George H.W. Bush, but there?s a certain New England aura too him that makes him the right contrast to the younger Bush?s Texas swagger. Elizabeth Banks? Laura Bush takes a similar approach and so does Scott Glenn?s Donald Rumsfeld. Thandie Newton on the other hand tries so hard to imitate Condoleezza Rice that her line readings are devoid of any real humanity. Toby Jones has similar problems playing Karl Rove, and Jeffrey Wright is never quite able to pull of Colin Powell. Richard Dreyfuss is probably the only actor other than Brolin who is really able to pull off imitation and acting in equal measure. Dreyfuss? Dick Cheney looks and sounds exactly like the real Vice President and he never feels robotic in his imitating.

I?ve always been a fan of Oliver Stone?s movies, the man used to have an uncanny ability to put out a lot of very long and very ambitious movies in very quick succession while still maintaining a very high level of quality. Then he made U-Turn and it?s like the man?s career fell off a cliff. Any Given Sunday had its moments and World Trade Center was competent enough, but with clunkers like Alexander and the aforementioned U-Turn it?s hard to deny that Stone?s output has been dramatically worse than it once was. W.[i] Looked like a perfect project to make a comeback out of, unfortunately I think this falls prey to a problem I never expected a fearless director like Oliver Stone to have: it plays too safe.

The film feels very plausible, a bit too plausible. Almost everything in the movie is a well documented historical event that Bush himself would probably agree to, albeit with a deliberate focus on the things that make Bush look bad. It?s almost like Stone was so afraid of being dismissed as a left wing kook that he decided to stick so close to the facts that there isn?t much left for the movie to show that wasn?t already covered in [i]Fahrenheit 9/11. I?m not saying I wanted Stone to lie, what I wanted was for him to tell me something I didn?t already know, even if it meant using a little speculative fiction. Some of the best moments in the movie are during pre-Iraq strategy sessions where Dick Cheney lays out a scary theory of American imperialism. I?m sure this stretched a lot further than what can strictly be proven, it was probably speculated, and that?s what I wanted to see more of. I would have liked to see Stone go behind the closed doors of the White House and seen the planning that went into some of Bush?s botched policies like he did with Richard Nixon.

I also think the film suffers because it doesn?t really show a lot of the consequences of Bush?s actions. Of course one could easily argue that we?re seeing those consequences in our daily lives, but why fictionalize this at all if we already know all the real details. There?s some brief Iraq war footage, and the film goes a little bit into the period where Bush sees that the war isn?t as easy as he expected, but the film stops long before he finds himself become the least popular president since Hoover. The film also focuses in entirely on Iraq during the presidential portions, which is also a problem. Hurricane Katrina isn?t mentioned once even though that was where the public really turned on him. The Patriot Act is mentioned briefly and there?s a set up for No Child Left Behind that?s never delivered on. While Iraq is probably going to be the main red flag in the Bush legacy, it?s by no means the only mistake he made. This was never a problem with the three and a half hour Nixon, hopefully we?ll see a director?s cut that can fit more of this stuff in, until then we?re stuck with a film that focuses mainly on George Bush Jr. that underachieving president?s son who might have a better job some day in the future.

The film?s clever trailer is a montage to the tune of the song ?Once in a Lifetime? By the Talking heads. Over the course of the montage the song?s lyrics seem to match up with what we?re seeing on screen. Among the most telling of these lyrical juxtapositions is the line ?And you may ask yourself-well...how did I get here?? That?s the question I think Stone is most interested in answering, and it?s a valid question to be ask going into an election. If nothing else, I think this might work as a cautionary tale about the importance of vetting the people you vote for. George W. Bush had no business being president and he was voted in by people who went with him without really thinking about the implications of his policies. This is a movie about the dangers of casually voting for an underachieving dude just because he talks tough. Otherwise it?s a fairly standard biopic that reenacts a lot of stuff we already have video footage of.

I?m making it sound like I disliked this movie a lot more than I actually did. The movie is not boring, it held my interest for its entire running time and it worked fairly well as a narrative. I think I?m mostly just disappointed because of how great I think this maybe could have been. This is a well made film with some good performances at its center; it does enough right to be worth watching. What it isn?t is the Oliver Stone comeback film that I?ve been waiting for. For the most part this feels like yet another missed opportunity in an early autumn movie season full of them.

The shadow of Quentin Tarentino looms over independent cinema far too much even to this day. When [i]Pulp Fiction[/i] debuted in 1994 it was such an inspirational film that it lead to a number of copycat projects and rip-offs. Clearly derivative films like [i]Things to Do in Denver When You?re Dead[/i] and [i]The Boondock Saints[/i] would find themselves getting far more praise than they deserve. Then Guy Richie brought Tarentino Rip-offs to the UK with projects like [i]Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels[/i] and [i]Snatch[/i] that had a lot of energy and very few original ideas. Consequently we were then treated to Richie rip-offs like [i]Smokin? Aces[/i]. At this point we had digressed to making rip-offs of rip-offs of rip-offs.
The trailer of the new Martin McDonagh film, [i]In Bruges[/i], made it look like another of these rip-offs. Fortunately this wasn?t really the case, though the film does fit in with a certain post-Tarentino lineage at least in genre, it?s not as stylistically derivative as any of the films listed above. Unfortunately, the film does suffer from a number of flaws of its own.
The film follows two Irish hit men hiding out in the Belgian tourist city of Bruges. Ray (Colin Farrell) is emotionally wrecked for some collateral damage he caused in his last ?job? and has nothing but disdain for the quaint city of Bruges. Ken (Brendan Gleeson) has a much higher opinion of the city and is interested in seeing some of the cultural sites. Ken has a much colder outlook toward his line of work, but maintains that he generally tries to live a moral life. The crime boss Harry (Ralph Fiennes) has given them specific instructions to be ready to receive a phone call which Ken suspects will be instructions for a hit they?ll carry out in Bruges.
Perhaps the biggest problem the film suffers from is that its tone is subject to some rather jarring shifts. One scene will feel like something out of a crude crime comedy and the next will explore rather esoteric themes of redemption. Handled well this sort of duality could be put to good use, but it never quite works here. The shifts are just too jarring and too random; one never really knows when to take the characters seriously. The film also has a way of juxtaposing comedy and graphic violence in a way they clearly find ironic, but which I thought was mostly just disturbing.
McDonagh?s script delivers some very sharp dialogue that flows very nicely and never tries to be Tarentino-esque. The script also develops the characters fairly well, but not well enough for this to work as any sort of deep character study. As such the main draw here needs to be the story itself, the problem being that the story isn?t wildly substantial and relies way too much on coincidence and contrived situations. Most of the first half of the movie involves the two hitmen (mainly Ray) getting into all sorts of random hijinx in the town, then there?s a twist, after that they re-encounter all of these things in ways that aren?t always overly logical. Case in point, there?s an early scene where Ken goes to a top of a bell tower, this tower functions as the setting for one of the climactic action scenes. Once I realized that the entire first half was a series of foreshadows it suddenly became clear what was going on and I was generally able to predict everything that would happen for the rest of the movie, and I was mostly right. Many viewers may be impressed by the complex structure the film has, but I was generally turned off by the artifice of it all.
What saves this film ultimately is some very good acting from the three principle actors. I?ve always thought of Colin Farrell as a very promising actor, he?s not on the same level as a Christian Bale or an Edward Norton, but he?s done solid work in a lot of good movies. Here he has the challenge of taking a whinny, potentially annoying character, and making him sort of cool. In Farrell?s hand Ray has a really manic, blue collar charm and he makes a lot of rather strange behavior from the character somehow make sense. Though Farrell gets top billing, Ken is the real main character here, and he?s expertly played by the underappreciated character actor Brendan Gleeson. Gleeson is able to make a lot of the character?s inner turmoil clear while keeping this all below the surface. He?s able to make Ken into a rather dignified character without ignoring the fact that he?s still a thug a heart. Just as the movie is beginning to go a bit off the rails in the final act, Ralph Fiennes shows up and absolutely steals the show. Fiennes is able to take an over-the-top character and lets his character go over the top in a way that?s fun rather than off-putting.
[i]In Bruges[/i] is a fairly fun if uneven and ultimately insubstantial film. Despite its many flaws, the strong acting, fast pace, and energy make it a fairly easy watch. I?m not entirely comfortable recommending people go to see it in the theaters at full price, but it would make a good rental for viewers who aren?t easily offended and are looking for a good crime movie.

I had this and Frozen River sitting on my table unwatched for the longest time, once I watched them I realized that they were actually quite similar. Both deal with immigration issues, both are independent, and both are primarily liked for a solid lead performance by underappreciated character actors. Of the two, The Visitor is easily the superior. From a filmmaking perspective this one has infinitely better production values, which is ironic because it?s a story that probably needed the budget less than Frozen River. Richard Jenkins lived up to the hype, he never overplays his role and he manages to stay believable throughout. The rest of the movie was quite good, but was perhaps a bit over praised. It?s not the most ambitious work, it tells a pleasant little character story and does it with the utmost dignity. The movie is impressive not so much because any one element is great, but because this story could have gone wrong in so many ways but it never does.

Michel Gondry is an interesting filmmaker, mainly because he entered the business in a different way than most. Gondry has been making music videos, commercials and short films since the late 80s, but didn?t enter the world of feature films until 2001 when he made the film Human Nature. That work was mainly overlooked, but his sophomore effort Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, ended up being one of the best movies in recent memory. Gondry is not like the many music video directors who seem obsessed with hyper kinetic pacing and massive CGI effects. Rather, Gondry has built his style around quirky stories and creative dreamlike visuals constructed mostly with physical effects. His third film, The Science of Sleep, was a disappointment. The film was cerebral to a self indulgent extent; the film was nearly impenetrable to all but the most diehard of Gondry fans. Gondry?s newest film, Be Kind Rewind, is probably the first Gondry film I?ve seen that doesn?t seem to take place in someone?s inner psyche, but it might have been more realistic if it did.
The film mostly centers on Mike (Mos Def) a young man working at a small New Jersey VHS rental shop called Be Kind Rewind. This is one of those neighborhood video stores everyone wants to support in theory, but usually doesn?t actually rent from because they have a poor selection. The shop is owned by Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover), who insists the store is the birthplace of the jazz great Fats Waller. Fletcher is informed by the town that his shop, which isn?t up to code, has been condemned and will need to be ripped down in favor of a condo. Rather than break this news to Mike, he goes on a trip in order to find new ways to run his business. Mike is left in charge of the store, but this quickly goes awry when is peculiar friend Jerry (Jack Black) breaks into a power plant, magnetizes himself, than accidentally erases all the tapes with his presence. Needing to procure a copy of Ghostbusters on short notice for the store?s most loyal customer, Mike and Jerry improvise and film their own DIY version of the film using very cheap effects. Strangely enough the scheme works and they must quickly make similar homemade versions of other popular films.
The movies Mike and Jerry make are really fun quirky pieces, with interesting DIY special effects. The Ghostbusters movie (which is given more emphasis than the other titles) for example, ends with a marshmallow man (made out of a coat hanger and a bag of marshmallows) being set on fire, then exploding onto Jack Black (via a whipped cream spray can). Any one of these copied movies could easily be a Youtube sensation, and Gondry continually surprises us by new and different do it yourself effects work. The film also benefits from smart title selection, as most of the movies featured somehow feel inherently linked to the VHS format.
Now I know what you?re thinking: Mike and Jerry?s scheme would never happen, no one would ever think that would work, and even if it could work it would still take a lot more money and time even to make these ?cheap? versions of the films than it would be worth. But, these kind of doubts forget one major element: that this film is ?quirky? and that instantly nullifies all logic and common sense. Of course that?s supposed to be the plan, but it doesn?t really work, not in the first half anyway. To the film?s credit, mid way through its established that no one actually thinks these are the real movies and that they?re mainly supporting Mike and Jerry out of a neighborly sense of encouragement, still it?s hard to believe that anyone would be paying twenty dollars to rent these things even out of the goodness of their hearts. In case you can?t tell, suspension of disbelief is necessary to get enjoyment out of this, but that?s not quite as large a problem as it would seem really, after all quirk really can explain a lot and there?s a certain ?if you build it they will come? sentiment to the whole thing.
That said, there are a lot of problems with the movie, and first among them is that it doesn?t really have very strong characters. None of the characters are very well developed over the course of the film, nor are they established very well to begin with, which could have been forgiven if they were a bit more lovable, but they aren?t. Mike should be the main character of the film, he?s the one managing the video store, and he?s the one who changes somewhat over the course of the film, but Gondry fails to really focus on him, possibly because he wanted more screen time for Jack Black, whose character is really only strong enough to be a comic relief sidekick. Mos Def is a better actor than most rappers, but he?s really not quite ready to carry a movie and this role needs someone who is. Jack Black, unfortunately just sort of seems to be on autopilot, he has the disadvantage of having a character whose only real characteristics are that he?s loveably dumb and energetic.
There?s a point where Jack Black?s character lets the video store's success get to his head and demands a trailer, here I began to think the film would turn into a satire of Hollywood, which would have been nice, but that never really materializes. The movie generally would have benefitted from more laugh out loud moments, which would have really boosted the film?s overall value, instead it becomes one of those comedies that settles on making the viewer smile a lot. I also found the film oddly predictable for such a creative piece, the filmmakers make the mistake of over-foreshadowing the finale which should have been more of a surprise than it was. The movie is really at its best when it shows the neighborhood coming together, and Gondry is very successful at building a believable community around the video store.
The DIY movies being made here reminded me a lot of the extravagant plays put on by Max Fisher in the Wes Anderson film Rushmore. Like those plays, the movies here are passionate projects built on a shoestring that can only be believed in a quirky movie like this. The difference is that those plays were just a small element in a larger movie that explores its characters, while the DIY movies are at the center of Be Kind Rewind and despite his best efforts, Gondry can?t quite build a story around them. There is fun to be had here, and there are a lot of really nice moments and an overall good spirit to the movie, but they don?t quite serve a satisfying whole.
**1/2 out of four

Mixed Martial arts, a recent combat oriented sport, has gained popularity as a hyped up form of kickboxing. The sport combines elements of jiu-jitsu, wrestling, boxing, and Brazilian kickboxing. The extreme nature of the sport has elicited multiple; some see it as a highly tactical form of athleticism while others like Senator John McCain have dismissed it as ?human cockfighting.? Personally I think MMA as a spectator sport is a rather tedious fad that will soon go the way of televised Texas Hold ?em. Unlike that fad however, Hollywood is putting out their cinematic tie-ins in a timely manner. Two months ago the critically panned Never Back Down came out, a good indication of the wave of films to come cashing in on the fad. But, then it was announced that another MMA related film was coming from none other then the great David Mamet. Despite my general disinterest in MMA, I?m always up for some Mamet, so I went in to Redbelt with fairly high expectations.

The film centers on Mike Terry (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a jiu-jitsu instructor in Las Angeles who believes sincerely in a certain code of honor in his martial art. Terry does not view combat as a sport and he looks down on competitive MMA. Terry is married to a Brazilian tailor named Sondra (Alice Braga) and is currently training a police officer named Joe Ryan (Max Martini). Early in the film a mentally unbalanced lawyer (Emily Mortimer) comes into Terry?s dojo and over-reacts when Ryan tries to help her, she grabs his gun and accidentally shoots out a window. Since Terry is in debt, he needs to take out a loan in order to pay for a new window so he goes to meet a loan shark friend of his, and at this bar he runs into a movie star named Chet Frank (Tim Allen) just as he?s about to get beaten up in a bar fight. Terry saves Frank and he offers a helping hand to him, unfortunately this leads to even greater layers of cons, twists, and betrayal.

David Mamet is a playwright turned filmmaker that I?m a huge fan of. He won a Pulitzer for his play ?Glengarry Glen Ross?, which was eventually tuned into a great film by Dan Foley. Mamet eventually tuned to adapting his own plays and then started writing directly for the screen. I?m a big fan of Mamet?s last film, Spartan, which I believe to be one of the most tragically overlooked films of recent years. In many ways I think Redbelt is something of a companion piece to Spartan, perhaps not deliberately so but both films feel like parts of a stage in the auteur?s body of work.

Mamet has moved on from the type of super fast paced dialogue that made him famous, but the dialogue is still clearly Mamet?s. Here, and especially in Spartan, Mamet has found unique ways of handling exposition, mainly by ignoring it; Mamet instead trusts the audience to figure out what?s going on without the characters explaining it to them. This is less noticeable here than it was in Spartan, but it still works. For example, Terry?s lawyer friend is seen early on trying to get into a pharmacy then goes into Terry?s dojo looking noticeably disturbed. A lesser director would have followed this with a character explaining exactly what mental disorder she suffers from and a detailed explanation of her relationship with Terry. Mamet, however, realizes why this is unnecessary and decides to simply allow the audience figure this out for themselves.

There?s a trick I?ve noticed Mamet using a lot recently where he compares the action onscreen to historical traditions. This was used in The Spanish Prisoner where the con onscreen is compared to a similar con from the 15th century. His screenplay to Ronin compared cold war spies turned mercenaries to ronin samurai who wandered Japan looking for work after their masters die. The quintessential example of this trick could be found in the central speech in Spartan where the film?s entire plot is described but in the terms of a medieval setting. Redbelt uses this trick more than any of Mamet?s previous films, as it is no longer a single scene metaphor; here ancient traditions are of essential importance to the story and especially the principles of the Mike Terry character.

These Principles are a big part of what makes Mike Terry such an interesting character. Terry follows a certain code of honor in the way he conducts himself; but what he calls honor others may simply call not selling out. A running theme in Mamet?s films, especially his recent ones, is that of a principled character trying to do good within the cutthroat environments of the rich and/or powerful. This was the main point of Spartan, and it was even present in a comedic way in State and Main. Mike Terry is the perfect character to put at the center of such a plot, he has a code of honor that seems positively quaint to the moguls and movie stars he runs into, but at the same time he never comes off as an anachronistic lunatic like the title character of Jim Jarmusch?s Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai. Terry is well aware of his place in the modern world and the consequences of his priorities.

This fascinating character is brought to life in a big way by Chiwetel Ejiofor?s really good performance. Ejiofor is one of the best emerging character actors of recent memory and he?s been on a role recently with roles in films like Talk to Me and American Gangster. Ejiofor brings an invaluable sense of dignity to Mike Terry without which he would not have worked on screen. In a lesser actor?s hands Terry?s speeches about honor would have come off like cheesy relics of bad kung Fu movies and would have undermined the whole film, but Ejiofor makes them work.

The rest of cast feels like a course in Mamet casting 101, and that is not a bad thing. Firstly, Mamet?s three regulars are in play: Ricky Jay is the film?s corporate villain, Rebecca Pidgeon has a small role, as does Joe Mantegna. Also present is Tim Allen of all people, trying to pull the same trick as Steve Martin pulled in The Spanish Prisoner by playing against type in a David Mamet film. Other less famous actors also do a great job; Emily Mortimer and Alice Braga both adapt to Mamet dialogue very well, and Max Martini is good as well.

I?ve said a lot of good things about this movie because there are a lot of good things in it; unfortunately they?re never quite assembled right. In many ways the film suffers greatly from a poor macguffin, I don?t really want to give this away (even if the spoilerific trailer already did), but it has the problem of being something that just isn?t worth this much trouble to get. The people seeking this Macguffin go to great (and often illegal) lengths to get it when they could have just as easily just bought it, they?re rich they can afford it. This could have in fact been part of the film?s message about the lengths greedy people will go to get what they want, but it?s hard for me to believe that even Mamet can be cynical enough to believe even the greediest millionaire will do all this to save two hundred thousand dollars.

Really, in many ways I wish Mamet had just stuck to making a movie about honor rather than getting stuck in the middle of what is in many ways a second rate con artist plot. The twists don?t really amount to as much as they should and the character story is more interesting the whole time. What?s more this con is somewhat muddled and by the end is never fully realized or explained. In many ways this fits with his pattern of avoiding exposition, but I think a clearer explanation or one more twist to fully explain the situation was probably necessary. However, though this major flaw is there to be found, it never feels like as big a problem as it should be because Mamet replaces it with things that are even more interesting, like a final ending which could be interpreted as either a triumph of the human spirit or as a cynical stunt that will ultimately help the villains more then it hurts them, if only it had also provided closure to the story it would have been perfect.

This one is a really close call, as a Mamet-head I found more than enough here to make it worth my time simply to watch the evolution of this important auteur even though the film didn?t really quite work on an objective level. But for non-Mamet freaks this is a much more iffy proposition. The performances are good, the dialogue and general filmmaking are also good, as are the themes and messages, but unfortunately the story never really works. But even if the story doesn?t work there was more than enough fun to be had along the way that I had my money?s worth, unfortunately I?m not sure that non-Mamet-heads will be a lot less interested or forgiving.

He often doesn?t get quite the respect or reverence he deserves, but Ridley Scott is one of the most important directors of the last thirty years. One of the first directors to be given the promotion from advertising director to feature film director, Scott brought a new level of polish to the screen, raising the bar on cinematic production values. This is a fairly unpretentious accomplishment, but it?s every bit as important as the accomplishments of people like Steven Soderbergh, David Lynch, or Werner Herzog. Scott?s mastery of cinema production values is his greatest strength, no movie has better sets, special effects, photography, or set pieces than a Ridley Scott movie, and he?s still a cut above all his competitors.
However, I must say that a number of the movies Scott has made during this decade haven?t been as good as they should have been. When Scott made Gladiator in 2000, it looked like he was making a major comeback, but since then I frankly think that he?s been playing it a little too safe. His first post-Gladiator project, Hannibal was awful, I blame Thomas Harris?s horrible novel for that one, and since he made the excellent Black Hawk Down right after it Scott still seemed like he was on the right track. Then he made Matchstick Men which I think is an underrated gem, but after that the trouble started. Kingdom of Heaven was passable, but not anywhere as good as it could have been, partly because of Orlando Bloom?s lackluster screen presence and partly because of a compromised theatrical cut. At least Scott learned his lesson from that and never casted Orlando Bloom again? or anyone else who isn?t Russell Crowe. I didn?t even see A Good Year, and American Gangster was good, but again not anywhere near as good as something with that pedigree should have been. Now Scott has made another film, and this one was about the American war on terror, now that didn?t sound like something that would be playing it safe.
The film centers around Roger Ferris (Leonardo DiCaprio), a CIA agent on the ground in the Middle East. He takes orders from Edward Hoffman (Russell Crowe), a middle aged CIA member who claims to be an expert on the region but who gives his orders over the phone from his suburban household. After a botched operation on the ground in Iraq, Ferris is sent to Amman, Jordan to track down a terrorist leader who is the likely perpetrator. There he teams up with the local intelligence agency lead by a man named Hani Salaam (Mark Strong), who demands only one thing: that Ferris never lies to him. They devise a plan to infiltrate a terrorist safe house by conditioning a member of the organization to their side.
I don?t need to tell anyone how much 9/11 and the war on terror had affected our society. When the wars in the Middle East began, it was a great opportunity for filmmakers to use their craft to either make statements about our society or at least have a dramatic situation to depict. The movie that was probably best able to utilize the geopolitical situation was probably Stephen Stephen Gaghan?s Syriana, a film that had the patience to honestly describe the full complexities of the Middle East?s affect on America and America?s effect on the Middle East. Three years later, Syriana remains the gold standard for this genre, unfortunately most of the movies related to Iraq or the broader war on terror since then have not lived up to their potential. Many of them fall prey to peachiness, as was the case with Rendition, others are just too busy being angry to act as good narratives, as was the case with Redacted. These movies are overbearing and don?t work, but at least they?re trying to do something, on the other end of the spectrum there?s last year?s retarded action film The Kingdom, which exploited the war on terror in order to film a number of explosions and justified it with meaningless pseudo-moralizing in the last fifteen minutes. Body of Lies never reduces itself to the level of that stinker, but by the end it doesn?t seem to have much more on its mind.
This movie does not have a message, it doesn?t clarify the Middle East, and it isn?t a well reasoned drama. In fact Kingdom of Heaven, a movie about the 12th century crusades, probably had more to day about the modern Middle East then this does. All right, that?s an overstatement; there are a few ideas on the surface about the effect of decision making by people removed from the realities of the region, but it?s clear to me that this is not why Ridley Scott made this movie. This is a spy thriller pure and simple that happens to deal with the current conflicts. The film makes me wonder what all those cold war spy movies must have felt like while the cold war was actually going on. Like most of my generation I don?t remember much of the Cold War, and I wonder if the way I watched a Bond movie like From Russia With Love would be different if the Russians actually posed a nuclear threat. Of course a lot of those movies usually sidestepped their political implication by making the real bad guys separate criminals like SPECTRE or some sort of rouge general, there?s no such separation in The Kingdom or Body of Lies, the villains are Islamic terrorists with only superficial differences from Osama Bin Laden. Similarly exploitative undertones also killed off a lot of the fun that could have been had from movies like the new Rambo and Blood Diamond. Frankly, I?m not comfortable with simplistic action movies being made against the backdrop of the serious problems in the Middle East.
Of course this all would have been a lot more forgivable if I thought Body of Lies worked better as a straight up thriller. The movie?s fractured act structure prevents the stakes from really raising to high before the movie moves on to other things, and the ending is really anti-climactic. Also the action is mostly front loaded, in the first act there is a pretty big shootout, and an awesome car chase involving a helicopter. After that though, the movie becomes more of a cloak and dagger affair.
Ridley Scott?s direction is as slick as ever, and the dialogue is also quite good. Russell Crowe gives a pretty fun performance; it?s certainly fun watching him talk on one of those cell phone microphones that dangle down on a wire anyway. Di Caprio is also perfectly functional as the film?s hero, although I could have done without the vaguely southern accent he?s trying to do. The one who steals the show here is Mark Strong, who is really bringing his A-game as the head of Jordanian intelligence.
It should really be noted that this movie coasts along as far as it possibly can with great production values, star power, and good dialogue. But all this can only take it so far, Scott manages to maintain a certain level of dignity through the whole affair, but it can?t make up for the movie?s general pointlessness. It?s never as stupid as The Kingdom, but I don?t think it will be much more memorable either. Scott can do a lot better than this and I think he needs to think a little less commercially with the projects he chooses, as can the rest of this cast. Body of Lies is ultimately a movie unworthy of its pedigree, a real missed opportunity.

I?ve never attended the Sundance Film Festival, but I can say that the output of movies from it has never really tempted me to rush out there. The place does tend to get one or two really prestigious gems a year, but the movies that play there never seem to be up to the caliber of the films that are programmed into international festivals like Cannes, Venice, and Toronto. What?s worse the unadventurous taste of programmers there seem to have lead to the creation of the ?Sundancey? genre; coming of age movies set New York, L.A. or a small town that deal with substance abuse and/or a dysfunctional family. The movie to come out of this year?s Sundance film festival was The Wackness, a movie that was (surprise!) a coming of age movie set in New York that deals with substance abuse and a dysfunctional family.

Let?s film in the blanks, the person coming of age here is Luke Shapiro (Josh Peck), an eighteen year old living in New York circa 1994 who has just graduated from high school and is depressed about his future. Luke has very little respect for his parents (dysfunctional family: check), who he sees as acting childishly, particularly his father (David Whol) who has recently put the family into financial trouble. To make money, Luke uses an disheveled Icee cart as a front for a small time pot dealing operation (substance abuse: check). His favorite customer is a psychiatrist named Dr. Squires (Ben Kingsley) who?s having a mid-life crisis because of the troubles he?s having relating to his wife (Famke Janssen) and stepdaughter (Olivia Thirlby) who Luke knows from school (Dysfunctional family: that makes two dysfunctional families). Squires lets Luke give Squires free pot in exchange for free consoling, but it becomes clear that the middle aged Squires is living vicariously through Luke?s youthful stories.

Luke Shapiro is not the type of character that is usually the subject of movies; he?s too thoughtful and quirky for movies targeted at people his own age, but to cocky and immature to really be of interest to the average movie directed toward adults. As such he?s probably a bit closer to the way an actual teenager would act than one is likely to see in most movies. Despite his occupation as a drug dealer, the kid is not a real gangster at all, in fact there?s a really refreshing innocence to him. He?s not a popular kid in school, but he?s also not some kind of stereotypical nerd, he?s described in the film as being ?the most popular unpopular guy ins school.? He?s fascinated by the mid-90s Hip-Hop music that populates the movie?s soundtrack, and even though he doesn?t really fit with that culture he doesn?t seem like a complete wannabe either. He talks with heavy use of dated urban slang, partly in an attempt to be cool but also out of a genuine bond he at least imagines he has with the world of the music he loves. This slang combined with his unconfident mumbling speech patterns are a bit jarring at first, but this is a deliberate choice on the part of Josh Peck and writer/director Johnathan Levine, this is an accurate depiction of how real teenagers talk even if it isn?t the most aurally pleasing speech pattern.

The fact that the filmmakers prevented Luke and other characters from simply filling stereotypes is one of the movies biggest strengths, most movies are pleased to lump teenage characters into retarded John Hughes stereotypes and play them out like that the whole way. The depiction of Dr. Squires is a little closer to the realm of cliché, as we have seen this kind of ex-hippie midlife crisis character a lot recently, but Ben Kingsley plays him in a way that makes him more interesting than he probably was on the page. The other interesting performance comes from Olivia Thirlby as Dr. Squire?s daughter and object of Luke?s desire. Between her performances in this film,Juno, and Snow Angels we?ve seen a lot of good work in diverse roles from Thirlby and she may just be the next indie-queen or even an outright movie star someday.

I said before that this film was set in 1994, well this isn?t as trivial a detail here as one would think. Levine is clearly in love with the mid-90s and has populated the film to the brim with nostalgic details and historical set-dressing from the year. Aside from the slang and the soundtrack with get references to Mayor Giuliani, Forrest Gump, Beverly Hills 90210, and an incredibly unsubtle shot of the not yet fallen World Trade Center. What do these references bring to the table aside from some nostalgic fun? Not much really, in fact they frequently detract from it. The Clinton era may seem like a while ago but fashions and settings haven?t really changed that dramatically since then, so the viewer never really settles into it as a period piece until one of these references pop out of nowhere and take you out of the movie to remind you how much Johnathan Levine loves and remembers the year that was 1994. Boiled down, the story is pretty much universal, so I can?t see too much of a reason why Levine decided to make this a period piece other than to add some flavor to an otherwise pretty routine coming of age tale.

As for the soundtrack, there is definitely some good music here but it?s not great to the point where they should be bill boarded in the trailer. This is mostly mainstream east coast hip-hop, and 1994 was a good year for it. The two big albums of the year, Nas? ?Illmatic? and Notorious B.I.G.?s ?Ready to Die? both have tracks represented here, there are alos tracks from A Tribe Called Quest, R. Kelly, Biz Mackie, Will Smith, The Wu Tang Clan, and Raekwon. Some of the tracks are chosen because they?re truly good, others because they fit in better with the world. For example the Biggie track featured is ?The What,? which is one of the most forgettable tracks off the classic ?Ready to Die? album, but its inclusion here makes sense as it focuses on subjects like sex and drugs rather than the hardships and struggles of the more hardcore tracks, and one can tell why Luke Shapiro would relate more to it. I do however have some problems with the cheesy way that some of the tracks lyrically relate to the action on screen rather than simply set a mood, like a sex scene set to R. Kelly?s ?Bump and Grind? or a the use of Biz Mackie?s ?Just a Friend? shortly after Squire?s daughter says Luke?s ?just a friend.?

The film is something of a dramedy, it is never straight up going for laughs, but it is by no means searing drama either. There aren?t that many belly laughs, but I did chuckle quite a bit mainly at some clever lines that pop up just enough to not overpopulate the movie. This is also a movie that?s largely unafraid to break the fourth wall, like in the opening scene where a CGI thought bubble comes up on screen leading to a brief fantasy scene on a subway, later the sidewalk Luke steps on begins to light up like in the Michael Jackson ?Billie Jean? music video to express his ecstasy after a fairly successful date. These are not things that occur in every other scene and only pop up sporadically. Like with the 1994 references and soundtrack they can be an unneeded distraction and again seem to only be window dressing to hide that this is the kind of story we?ve seen before.

That?s the main draw back here, deep down this isn?t an original story, and without all the neat tricks it would be a 95-minute cliché. Like I said before, this is a prototypical Sundance storyline and there tend to be two or three movies that follow that formula which storm out of that festival every year. If you?ve seen Rushmore, Garden State, Good Will Hunting, and The Squid and the Whale you might know what I?m getting at. There?s even a sort of twist on The Graduate in that Luke befriends Squires before moving in on his daughter against her father?s wishes. At this point most coming of age movies are going to have to collide with each other, as coming of age stories is just inherently not that different in the grand scheme of things. The trick is to try to make your story stand out even if deep down it doesn?t, and Jonathan Levine tries like mad to do just that and never quite succeeds.

This one is a close call, there?s definitely fun to be had with The Wackness, especially if nostalgia is your bag. I really do love the Luke character and the way Levine prevents him from being a stock stereotype. Levine?s other choices are hit or miss and ultimately unable to hide the fact that this un-clichéd character is in a clichéd story. Ultimately I?m going to have to say that this isn?t for everyone and most can probably wait for it to come out as a DVD rental.

In the June of 2003 Ang Lee put out his take on the comic book character The Incredible Hulk amidst a flurry of huge budget blockbusters like X-Men 2 and The Matrix Reloaded. The simply titled Hulk, was just coming off the success of the original Spider-Man, and Ang Lee could have easily churned out a cookie-cutter blockbuster and turned a huge profit. Instead Lee decided to take chances on his trip up to the superhero bat and essentially made a superhero drama as opposed to a superhero action movie. The result was a very interesting if somewhat flawed exploration of the genre. Of course this didn?t sit to well with the 13 year old males the studio marketed the film to and the movie famously dropped 70% in its second week, after a very respectable opening. Now, five years later, the superhero genre has gone from being a fad to being a decade long institution and Marvel has no intention of letting one of it?s biggest franchises sit around collecting dust. So they?ve decided to ?reboot? the franchise, and this time they?re doing everything they can to pander to the 13 year olds.
After a quick introduction, the film opens in the Brazilian fravelas where Bruce Banner (Edward Norton) has been hiding for the last five years. Through really convoluted means General Ross (William Hurt), who?s been tracking him, manages to locate him in Brazil and sends a team to capture Banner. The leader of this team, Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth), spots Banner while he?s in Hulk-form and becomes obsessed. Shortly before he?s chased out of town by the Special Forces team, an anonymous scientist calling himself Mr. Blue (Tim Blake Nelson) contacts Banner and tells him he has found a cure for Banner?s ailment (perfect coincidental timing). With this in mind Banner decides to travel to New York in hopes that Mr. Blue?s cure works out, but while he?s there he runs into his old flame Betty Ross (Liv Tyler).
The film recounts the origin story of Bruce Banner in its first three minutes while the opening credits are rolling; it generally assumes the audience to be familiar with the character from the get-go. This makes the film?s place as in independent story a bit awkward. Ignoring that opening one could conceivably pretend that this is indeed a sequel to Ang Lee?s Hulk, albeit one with different actors. The relationship between the pursuing General Ross, his daughter, and Bruce Banner seems to have carried over, and there?s nothing to contradict Lee?s film except the opening scene; in fact the film opens in South America which is where the coda for the 2002 film was set. There seems to be something rather confused and tacky about this reboot attempt, it reminded me in some ways of The Sum of All Fears, which was another film that tried to pretend the rest of its series never happened for no good reason.
There?s a film related podcast I?ve been listening to for the last couple of years called The Hollywood Saloon (which I highly recommend). The hosts of that show have come to coin the word ?McMovie? which refers to bland Hollywood blockbusters which seem to be churned out for the sole purposes of making a lot of money. These movies that take no chances do not try to achieve any form of greatness; people like Brett Ratner, Tim Story, or McG usually direct them. A comparison between Ang Lee?s Hulk and this new film from Louis Leterrier (The man behind The Transporter series) provides a perfect example of the differences between a serious film and a McMovie. While Lee?s film was a thoughtful meditation, Leterrier?s film settles on loudness. It?s not just run of the mill loudness either, I haven?t seen a theater rattle like that in a long time. Lee?s film was heavy on plot and story telling, Leterrier?s film is heavy on CGI, so heavy in fact that it was often hard to distinguish the film?s trailer from the advertisements for its videogame adaptation. Lee?s film took chances within the context of it?s genre and tried to develop characters with real histories and problems outside of their comic book crisis, Leterrier?s film on the other hand feels like it was written by a marketing committee.
Of course McMovie?s aren?t always terrible, in fact they?re often quite competent, but by their nature they?re never great. This is by no means a terrible film and there?s actually a lot to like in it. Firstly, the cast here is quite good. Edward Norton is one of the best actors of his generation, and he?s really overqualified for this role, but the same could be said for almost anyone cast in a superhero movie. Norton seems to be taking his work here pretty seriously, and he brings his inner tortured soul out pretty well. William Hurt is also doing quite well picking up where Sam Elliot left off in the same basic role in Ang Lee?s film. I also really liked Tim Blake Nelson?s work in a small but important role that looks like a setup for a future sequel.
There are however definite problems with other casting choices. Particularly problematic is the casting of Tim Roth, an actor I?ve never been a huge fan of, who is supposed to be playing some kind of badass elite special forces member. Roth generally doesn?t seem very military in the way he carries himself, and he generally looks a bit too short and skinny for the buildup he?s given as ?the best of the best? so to speak. Liv Tyler also has some serious problems, as I don?t think she?s evolved much as a performer since Armageddon. She seems pretty young for her role as a major biology researcher; she must have been twenty-five when Banner had his accident. Tyler seems really mild mannered at some points and highly assertive at others. Her character just isn?t very well defined or developed and she doesn?t have much to do. None of the actors here improve on their counterparts from Ang Lee?s film at all, and were recast for no reason other than to differentiate reboot from that unpopular project.
From an effects point of view the film does not live up to the standards of other movies like Iron Man, though this admittedly has a lot to do with the inherent challenges of the Hulk character. While Iron Man was largely cased in lifeless steel, the Hulk effects team had to replicate a creature of organic flesh. Characters like Spider-man can at least have some sort of humanity under all the CGI and even King Kong had a lot of fur and a real world creature to be based on, all the Hulk can really be is a walking special effect. These obstacles may have been why Ang Lee choose to focus on a very human story with his film, even the 70s T.V. series mostly focused on Bill Bixby and only used the Lou Ferrigno creature sparingly. Here on the other hand we deal with numerous extended action sequences and once a second creature emerges the film becomes increasingly CGI dependent.
The first two actions scenes have a certain level of respectability to them, particularly the first scene that is mainly a foot chase through the favelas with an un-transformed Banner. The chase is pretty exciting, at least until Banner coincidentally runs into someone from earlier in the film. A second action sequence on a college campus also has a lot going for it, though I don?t think it?s ever explained why this university is completely devoid of bystanders. The third fight scene, however, quickly devolves into a pair of CGI hulks mashing into each other.
The film generally suffers from a number of plot holes like Mr. Blue?s coincidental discovery of the cure at just the right time, and the ludicrous way the military finds Banner in Brazil, which the filmmakers try to cover up by distracting the audience with a Stan Lee Cameo. Throughout the film the military have an uncanny ability to cover-up the fascistic behavior they use to capture this escaped scientist, and the Hulk jarringly begins to sprout a conscious at the most convenient (read: sequel preserving) moment. The film also has a lot of lame attempts at humor. There?s also a tacky cameo scene that?s clumsily tacked onto the end, it exist for no reason other than to be an inside joke and it robs the movie of a naturalistic ending. Iron Man at lest had the decency to hide its tacky coda after the credits.
This is a great example of Hollywood marketing run amok, it?s a blatant attempt to reestablish the franchises brand with a run of the mill film intended to appeal to the ADD crowd. The film seems perfunctory and if you saw any of the films advertising you already saw almost everything the film had to offer. Admittedly, the film never descends to the level of stupidity found in something like Transformers, but it also features very few creative ideas. As far as these things go there are much worse ways Hollywood could have you spend two hours, but this is still a very forgettable experience.

In recent years, I?ve gotten increasingly skeptical about crime movies from the UK. I very rarely use a country of origin as a reason to be turned off by a film, but all to often British crime movies have be increasingly derivative recycling of Tarentino?s style via Guy Richie. Of course there are plenty of bad derivative crime films made all over the world, but British exports seem particularly prone to this. So why has a hater like me already seen two of UK crime films this year? Well it?s mainly because of a lack of competition, if In Bruges and The Bank Job had been released during the summer or award season I would have happily ignored them, but the pickings are slim in March so I took the risk on them, and in the case of In Bruges I was pleasantly surprised. Fortunately I was also somewhat surprised by The Bank Job, a crime film even further from the lineage of Tarentino than In Bruges.
The film is set in 1971 London, and centers on Terry Leather (Jason Statham), a low level thug who partakes in low level crimes. An old girlfriend of Terry?s named Martine (Saffron Burrows) meets up with him and tells him about a plan she has to rob a local bank whose alarm system is undergoing repairs. Terry hasn?t done a heist as big as this before, but he agrees to this one because his auto repair business is not doing great, and he thinks it?s about time his gang breaks into the big leagues. What Terry doesn?t know is that Matine is doing this because she is being Blackmailed by MI5. The entire robbery is a scheme by MI5 to retrieve a compromising photograph of Princess Margret that is being held in a safety deposit box at the bank by a pseudo black militant calling himself Michael X (Peter de Jersey).
Jason Statham is a big part of why I was hesitant to see this film. Statham is not really a bad performer, but he regularly finds himself in really trashy movies. He seems to have two careers; one involves the aforementioned derivative British crime films like Snatch and Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels, the other path consists of B-Grade western Martial arts movies like War and The Transporter. This film doesn?t follow either of those trends in Statham?s career, but I can?t say it really makes me like him much more than I already did. Statham has what it takes to be a solid action movie hero; he?s something of a cross between Bruce Willis and Jean-Claude Van Damme. But I haven?t seen any evidence to see him as a truly great actor outside of this type of genre work the way someone like Willis is. Still, this is exactly the type of role that suits him, it?s a movie with a little more respectability but which doesn?t require him to really express any kind of deep emotion.
Another thing that turned me off to the movie was its bland title; in fact this is the blandest heist movie title since David Mamet?s Heist. Of course one should never judge a book by its cover, but somehow I couldn?t quite expect creative genius out of a movie that?s simply called The Bank Job. Like that title, the actual heist here really is quite bland, especially when compared to other heist films. There is no elaborate plan like one would find in Ocean?s 11, no firefight along the lines of Heat, and no colorful gang members like Reservoir Dogs. Instead this heist is a simple matter of tunneling into a bank that?s been closed over the weekend, grabbing all the cash and leaving. This isn?t rocket science and it?s also nothing we haven?t seen before, tunneling has been used in every heist film from Rififi to Entrapment to The Ladykillers.
Two thirds of the way through the film I was being somewhat entertained, but the film had not set itself apart at all. Fortunately, the story picks up in a big way in its third act and improves dramatically. What sets the film apart are the things surrounding the robbery rather than the heist itself. I don?t want to give away what goes on during the third act, there isn?t really a big twist but events simply begin to get more interesting after the heist, that?s where the film really kicks in.
The film is supposedly based on a true story, but I?m very skeptical about just how true any of this is. I?m willing to buy the basic details of the heist itself, but the angle about the Princess Margret photos and the other elements surrounding the heist are a bit harder to believe. The filmmakers claim that the truth of the incident haven?t been widely reported because of a D-notice placed on the situation by the British government, and this does make most of the film?s claims a bit hard to disprove. The whole thing strikes me as something of a wild conspiracy theory to me; I?m sure the royal family is important to MI5, but I highly doubt they?d go to anywhere near the lengths they are here over one scandal. Of course I?m never one to really worry that much about accuracy as long as a good yarn is being told, and if one doesn?t take the claim too seriously this won?t get in the way of one?s enjoyment.
The impressive third act almost makes me want to give the film a pass, but the fact still remains that two thirds of the movie are rather bland. The characters work, but I had no particularly interest or attachment to any of them. The script told the story well enough and the dialogue worked well enough, although there was some kind of clunky exposition at points. The film?s visual style worked moderately well, although there was absolutely nothing about it that set the film apart from the pack. Not setting itself apart from the pack very much is a running theme in the film really. The film is simply very average for most of its running time. I?d be willing to recommend this as a rental, because I?m really close to giving it a pass, but I can?t really say it?s worth seeing in the theaters.

John Sayles is an odd filmmaker in that his work seems oddly isolated from everything else Hollywood puts out. He?s almost a textbook example of what an auteur is, in that one can guess he directed a film simply by watching a single scene, but pinpointing why his work is recognizable is not always as easy as it is with other filmmakers. There?s something in the dialogue, the way the actors behave, and the ambitious aim of his uniquely American stories that positively define his work behind the camera. His newest film, Honeydripper, was mostly ignored in theaters and I had hoped that it would be an underappreciated gem; unfortunately it?s minor Sayles at best.

The film is set in a fictional Alabama town of Harmony during the very early 1950s. The film specifically focuses on Harmony?s black community, particularly a tavern/dance hall called the Honeydripper. The venue is owned by Tyrone Purvis (Danny Glover), but it has fallen on hard times. Purvis is in danger of losing the place to a loan shark, so he and his friend Maceo (Charles S. Dutton) plan a last ditch effort to stay in business by bringing in a famous blues musician named Guitar Sam to play a big gig that would generate enough money to pay Purvis? rent. Purvis has recently drifted away from his wife Delilah (Lisa Gay Hamilton) and is also being threatened by the town?s racist sheriff (Stacy Keach). Meanwhile a young man named Sonny (Gary Clark Jr.) has arrived in town carrying a guitar case and interested in auditioning at the local music scene to make ends meet. Purvis can?t really afford the show he plans to put on and it becomes clear that the evening?s entertainment will be a make or break night for him and the Honeydripper.

There was a lot less music in the film then I had expected, the story clearly deals with people who have music as a major part of their life, but the soundtrack is not loaded with period music. There is a great performance scene toward the end which features the use of a very early electric guitar, the music played is a primitive and toe tapping form of rock and roll.

The movie?s main problem is mainly that it has a lot of southern clichés. Among the types to be found here: a redneck sheriff, an eager young man gone to town to make something of his music career, a white southern housewife oblivious to the rest of the world, and a blind old coot who plays guitar on main street stoops. Occasionally Sayles will do some unexpected things with these types, for instance that Sheriff proves to ultimately be more interested in getting free chicken than oppressing people just for the fun of it, there?s also a neat twist with the blind old coot.

Danny Glover is probably the best thing about the film, he?s got just the right ability to seem like a nice and likable guy, but still having a certain gruffness to his character. It?s clear that Glover?s character has seen a lot over the course of his career as a bar owner and blues enthusiast. He?s a character that clearly has a past and the audience easily gets the gist of it without the movie explicitly showing or describing much of it.

In final analysis, Honeydripper is just a very average and fairly forgettable film. It has a neat atmosphere, the story works well enough, but it?s just a very small trifle of a film. Had I seen it in theaters I would have felt vaguely ripped off, and I?m not sure I?d even recommend it as a DVD rental. But, if you see it on cable or something like that I do think it?s worth giving a shot.

I like Spike. Spike Lee has been putting out bold and original films for more than twenty years now. Lee is a filmmaker who doesn?t pull any punches, when he wants to make a point he?ll go all out. This means that he can make some really biting satire, but it also means he can go too far occasionally. It also means that some of his movies can get overloaded with interesting ideas and become messy polemics rather than well thought out debates. His newest film, Miracle at St. Anna, looks at the African American experience during World War 2.

The film begins in a post office in 1989. A man walks up to an African American teller and tries to buy some stamps, a sudden look of recognition falls on the tellers face, suddenly the teller pulls out a Luger and shoots the customer dead. The teller is arrested and when the police search his house they find an ancient Italian artifact that disappeared during the Second World War. The film then flashes back to the Italian campaign of the war. During the flashback the film follows the 92nd infantry Buffalo Soldier division, particularly four enlisted men. The teller, it turns out, was named Aubrey Stamps (Derek Luke), the highest ranking of the four. Sergeant Bishop Cummings (Michael Ealy) and Corporal Hector Negron (Laz Alonso) are both in a state of constant conflict over their differeing view of the way African Americans are treated by the military and white society in general. Finally, there?s Private First Class Sam Train (Omar Benson Miller), a large and not overly bright GI who befriends a young Italian boy (Matteo Sciabordi) that he finds abandoned in a house. The four find themselves being the only survivors of a tense gunfight. Broken from the main force they take refuge in a small Tuscan village where they wait for orders.

The film?s trailer focuses a lot on the statue head, and makes the film look like some kind of war-time artifact heist film, but this is misleading. The statue head is actually already in the soldier?s possession when the flashback begins and it ultimately has little to do with the story outside of the framing story. I can understand why they did this though, because the real center of the story is a much harder sell.

Lee clearly wants to set the record straight about the role African Americans played in the war, that?s a noble sentiment, but I wish he had found a better project to make this point through. With a white cast leading this movie and a more anonymous director, the film would have seemed like pretty bland and derivative war movie trying to ride the wave of post-Saving Private Ryan war fare. The racial elements are what set the movie apart, and they?re probably the most interesting parts of the film. The way these combat troops are treated by their commanding officers and by civilians in a diner back on base is sad and disturbing, especially in a modern ?support the troops? environment. There?s also a really interesting schism between the Ealy and Alonso characters.

What doesn?t work as well is the story surrounding the Miller character and the Italian orphan he befriends. In fact this sub-plot is so achingly schmaltzy, saccharine and mis-placed that it pretty much torpedoes the whole movie. Miller?s character, Sam Train, is a large and seemingly mentally challenged character. It almost feels like John Coffey, Michael Clark Duncan?s character from The Green Mile, somehow wandered onto a World War 2 battlefield. The Frank Darabont comparisons don?t stop there either; there?s a very awkward use of magical realism throughout this sub-plot that just seems really strange in a movie about a war, particularly in a campaign of the war that audiences are so used to seeing through a neo-realist lens.

One of the prevailing complaints about the film through its festival run was that it ran too long at 160 minutes. I?ve never been one to cry wolf about running times, I think there?s a disturbing level of attention deficit disorder running through critical circles and people are way too quick to jump on running time as a problem. That said, even I could see where these criticisms were coming from. I was never really bored or impatient about the film?s running time, but there was a lot of superfluous material here. The framing story is mostly a waste, and it includes a really odd cameo by John Leguizamo. Extended sub-plots about the Italian partisans seemed like a distraction, too much time was spent on the Italians in general when the movie should have been focusing on the four African American characters were in the theater to see. Even the Nazi officers are given a lot of screen time that doesn?t amount to much in the overall story. In all this mess of sub-plots the movie really loses track of the Derek Luke character, which is odd considering all the time the framing story spends trying to make this his story. The Laz Alonso character was a lot more interesting to me, and he was given a lot more to do through the whole movie.

On a visual level, the film works quite well. Like most films about World War 2 made since 1998, the film owes a pretty big debt to Steven Spielberg?s Saving Private Ryan. Spielberg?s film ushered in a new level of authenticity in the genre of World War 2 films and the genre has been all the better for it. This isn?t a wholesale lift though, unlike Spielberg and Eastwood?s films Lee doesn?t de-saturate the look of his war film, and this was probably the right choice given the film?s Italian setting and more fanciful tone.

In general, Lee plays this one straighter than he has with any movie since Malcolm X. No one talks directly to the camera, there?s no one sliding on wheels with a steady cam, and no strange tricks with the film?s horizontal hold. All those games worked fine in their respective movies, but Lee wisely didn?t see them as fitting in with the tone of a war movie. This really seems less like a Spike Lee Joint than any movie of his since maybe Clockers. In many ways it feels like he was trying to hold back his auteurist traits in order to get his message to as wide an audience as possible.

If nothing else, Miracle at St. Anna is very well intentioned. I think a straightforward story about three of these four soldiers preparing for a battle in an Italian town and relating with the locals would have made a fine story. If the film hadn?t been bogged down in the framing story and the sappy story about Sam Train and the Orphan it might have worked. As it stands though, the film really just doesn?t work, it?s too uneven, too convoluted, and lacks the grit it needed to really sell the plight of its characters. The film is almost as messy and unfocused as a Spike Lee Joint like Bamboozled or She Hate Me, except without the same energy or satire that made those movies sort of fun to watch in spite of themselves. Chalk this one up as noble failure.

Frost/Nixon is a film about a nation coming to grips with the career of a horrible war time president after he?s left office in disgrace. How could that possibly be relevant to our times? I ask that with all due sarcasm of course, it?s pretty obvious this moment in history is being brought up now because the nation is finally getting rid of another terrible president. Few people are interested in defending Richard Nixon now, he did some good on broad foreign policy, but his handling of the Vietnam War and the way he dealt with descent at home was incredibly misguided. Then of course there was Watergate, an event which was probably only the tip of this man?s iceberg of corrupt actions. Yet, for all of Nixon?s faults there?s still something interesting about him, which is why there have probably been more movies about him than any other president of the twentieth century. Frost/Nixon is the latest of these efforts; it chronicles the story behind Nixon?s first interview upon leaving office.

The film begins with Richard M. Nixon (Frank Langella) resigning from office and flying away on a helicopter. On the other side of the world an ambitious British talk show host named David Frost (Michael Sheen) watches Nixon exist stage left and is inspired, he points out how many people were watching and decides it would be a good business venture to seek an interview with the disgraced former president. His television colleague John Birt (Matthew Macfadyen) advises against this, pointing out that CBS had a standing offer with Nixon for $350,000 and that outbidding them wouldn?t be cheap. Frost is undeterred and manages to land the interview but at a heavy personal expense. Frost flies out to California and hires journalist Bob Zelnick (Oliver Platt) and author James Reston Jr. (Sam Rockwell) to help him prepare for the interview which is to last eight hours and be split up over four days, only the final two hour segment will deal with Watergate.

The film?s title indicates that this is very much a story of two halves, Frost and Nixon, of the two Nixon is significantly more interesting. Many writers and filmmakers have turned Nixon into a sort of Shakespearian tragic figure. Nixon?s paranoia is seen as a tragic flaw that brought down a man with good intentions. This was a new and creative observation shortly after his resignation when people started writing about him, it was interesting when Robert Altman put together Secret Honor, and it was even interesting when Oliver Stone of all people managed to find a certain level of sympathy in his biopic. After almost thirty-five years this isn?t such a novel idea, but it at least it?s worth telling, which is more then I can really say about the Frost half.

The David Frost of this film was no Bob Woodward; he was a fluffy talk show host who managed to strike the jackpot. This is the main problem the film has; it goes too far in trying to make Frost into a David to Nixon?s goliath. The film depicts Frost as an entrepreneur without much of a work ethic, he spends most of his time trying to get air-time and spends his time partying before his interviews rather than preparing. The film then has the audacity to celebrate this man for finally doing his homework at the last minute the weekend before he?s supposed to nail Nixon to the wall. It?s an incredibly Hollywood tactic, one that greatly lowers the viewer?s respect for the man and exists for no reason other than to add a bunch of fake and unneeded suspense to the story. I don?t believe for a minute that Frost was really this unprofessional, especially with a project he has so much invested in, and if he was he has no business being celebrated.

What?s more, I wasn?t really that impressed by the whole interview project to begin with. The film more or less concedes that the first three interviews were failures, and the feeble confession he manages to squeeze out of Nixon by the end is hardly the grand slam the film seems to think it is. More importantly, why should I care if Nixon is sorry about what he did? It?s already been proven through other means that he was a crook, his confession does nothing to set the record straight about the events, it was little more than the typical plea for sympathy that common criminals ask for after they?ve already been convicted and want a lenient sentence. Polls taken after the interviews aired in 1977 showed that 69% of the public still believed Nixon was covering up information; this was by no means the landmark media event the filmmakers seem to think it is. It would be like if they released a movie thirty years from now called ?Couric/Palin,? about that hilarious interview and depict it as some sort of amazing moment instead of the mild curiosity that it was. Nixon certainly deserves better than to be compared to that joke of a candidate, but if you think about it Frost isn?t that far removed from Couric, they were both mediocre T.V. personalities who managed to perform slightly more professionally than people expected.

In spite of a premise that I don?t think is really worthy of all this fuss, the film could have still worked if it had been done right, but that wasn?t the case here. I think part of the problem is that this is movie based on a play based on news reports based on real events, it?s been filtered too far and the filmmakers might have been better off starting from scratch. The film suffers from the usual problems films have with stage adaptations, it?s told through a series of long conversations and isn?t meant to be cinematic. Most stage adaptations like Doubt and Glengarry Glenross deal with this problem by not dealing with it, they go ahead and set the films in one building and as a result the audience can adjust and accept the movies for what they are. Frost/Nixon doesn?t do this, it does everything it can to look like a normal movie while having all the same problems that stage adaptations have, thus emphasizing them rather than de-emphasizing them.

What?s worse, I don?t really think this is much of a script. The film has a lot of really clunky exposition, it explains way too much while talking about its themes in very direct and inelegant ways. This is exemplified by a scene right before the first interview where Nixon points out that he?ll be holding a handkerchief to wipe perspiration off the top of his lip; so far so good, that?s a nice reference, but the moment is completely ruined when he goes on to tell the same story about his televised debate with Kennedy that any educated viewer will have already heard dozens of times. Peter Morgan and Ron Howard should have trusted the audience to make that connection without their long winded explanation. There?s a lot of stuff like that here, later on in the film spends entire scenes clumsily explaining all the movie?s themes rather than just leaving them there for the audience to pick up themselves.

Ultimately Ron Howard, a director I?ve never been a fan of, is responsible for a lot of the film?s problems. Howard has a long history of making movies filled with Hollywood clichés and then making them very bland to boot. Here he makes the mistake of trying to adopt a docudrama style which frankly torpedoes this entire movie. The film frequently drops into faux-interviews with supporting characters giving talking head interviews that did nothing but interrupt the film?s pacing in order to make comments which, like a lot of the script, talk directly to the themes while giving patronizing clarifications about the on screen action.

The one thing about the film that really lives up to its pedigree is the acting. Frank Langella doesn?t work particularly well as an impression; he doesn?t really that look that much like Nixon and his voice is a fairly caricatured. Rather, Langella?s work excels here because he can deliver the emotional payoff that his scenes require. Phillip Baker Hall?s work in Secret Honor remains the definitive Nixon performance, but Langella earns his place in the pantheon. Sheen is also impressive, he doesn?t have a character with the same dramatic opportunities as Langella?s, but he does makes Frost a lot more likable then he should be. Langella and Sheen both played their respective roles on stage in London and on Broadway before embarking on the film adaptation. Ron Howard deserves kudos for using them for the film, I?m sure he was given pressure to cast people with a little more bankability but he made the right choice.

The supporting cast is also pretty good. I especially like Sam Rockwell as a passionate author driven to give Nixon the tough interrogation he deserves, this character was a lot more interesting to me then David Frost and I wish he had more screen time. John Birt and Bob Zelnick are also good sidekicks in the film and Rebecca Hall does the best she can in a fairly uninteresting and thankless role as a woman Frost meets on a plane and sort of hangs around for the rest of the movie. Kevin Bacon is fine in the sort of stern disciplined henchman type that he could probably play in his sleep at this point. I did not like Toby Jones? turn as a book publisher, though that opinion may be clouded by his distractingly bad makeup and bald cap.

In the end, Frost/Nixon is a very well acted movie that has its moments, but for the most part it is agonizingly middlebrow and lifeless. It?s the same kind formulaic Hollywood movie Ron Howard has made his career on, but unlike those films it isn?t honest enough to commit to its own corniness, instead it pretends to be the type of serious historical analysis that it clearly isn?t.

One of the great pleasures of watching a lot of movies is the ability to spot new talent and watch it emerge over the course of a career. Every critic, film buff, and industry watcher wants to feel the way Martin Scorsese did in 1967 when he came out of Who?s That Knocking at My Door and proclaimed Martin Scorsese one of the great new talents of his generation. For me, and many others, Fernando Meirelles? City of God seemed like the start of a great director?s career. City of God was a bold and brilliant film that show the presence of a true cinematic genius behind the camera, a natural talent who had a Scorsese-esque ability to choose just the right trick to make every shot work to its fullest potential. It seemed like there was no place to go except down from that modern classic, but his follow-up The Constant Gardener did not disappoint. Mierelles showed no signs of a sophomore slump, with that film he had shown real maturity and toned down some of City of God?s virtuosity to fit that very different film. Expectations were high for Mierelles? third film, Blindness, which could solidify Mierelles as the great talent of our time if it lived up to his first two films. Unfortunately, Blindness isn?t as great as his previous films; in many ways it feels like the sophomore slump he somehow avoided with The Constant Gardener.
The film opens with a man (Yusuke Iseya) stopping his car in the middle of the road and telling the good Samaritans who stop to help him that he suddenly went blind while driving down the road. He eventually finds his way to an eye doctor (Mark Ruffalo) who can find no explanation for his sudden blindness. The next day, that eye doctor tells his wife (Julianne Moore) that he too is suddenly blind. It?s quickly decided that this blindness is the result of a spreading contagion and the government decides to quarantine everybody afflicted. The blind are brought into a detention facility and told to fend for themselves with no assistance from anyone with sight. The Julianne Moore character never loses her sight but decides to stay by her husband?s side in the quarantine just the same. The facility is undersupplied and unsupported, the blind quickly grow restless particularly a man in Ward 3 (Gael García Bernal) who shows no interest in cooperating with the people trying to make the place better.
The key problem with Blindness is simply that it is really depressing and unpleasant to sit through, which wouldn?t be a problem if it had a really strong story or a really profound message, but it has neither. The trailers don?t tell you this, but most of the movie isn?t set in the wider society dealing with this crisis, more than half of it is spent in a dark, dank, disgusting prison. The people are stuffed in like sardines, and the government isn?t even trying to help improve conditions. Painfully, the situation looks disturbingly similar to what happened to the people stuck in the New Orleans Superdome during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The difference is those people were stuck for about a week, and the people in the film are there for months on end with no end in sight and even less outside assistance. This allegory gives the sequence some degree of power, but at the same time there?s only so much of this abuse an audience can take. These scenes seem to go on forever, eventually the film moves on from this hellhole into some of its more impressive sequences in the last twenty minutes, but by then it?s too little too late. I only wish more of the film had taken place in the city than in that horrible prison.
The film?s central message is that society falls apart when it has to face a major crisis situation, but this is hardly a unique or original message. The story bears a very close resemblance to ?Lord of the Flies,? and brings very little new to the table. This is made worse by the fact that we?ve seen a lot of movies like this recently; some titles that come to mind include Children of Men, 28 Days Later, War of the Worlds, and The Happening, in fact The Happening would have probably been a lot like this if it hadn?t been completely inept.
The characters here all fit the same cliché types you?d find in a Hollywood disaster film: You?ve got the leader type in the woman who can see, you?ve got the wide old man in a character played by Danny Glover, you?ve got the hooker with a heart of gold that everyone judges at first but come to respect, you?ve got the kid who?s only there to quietly sit around and up the stakes for the larger group, and you?ve got the unbalanced crazy guy and his henchmen there to act as villains for the group. That?s really the root problem with the movie, deep down it?s just a Hollywood genre movie the ones listed above, it just doesn?t want to admit it. The end result is a movie that?s the worst of both worlds; it?s no more profound or well told than the average disaster movie, yet it?s an extremely depressing, claustrophobic, and unpleasant experience to sit through.
What saves the movie from being a real disaster is some very good acting and production values. The acting in particular has a knack for making the viewer almost forget just how cliché a lot of these characters are. I took issue with the way Julianne Moore portrayed her character early in the film, particularly the airheaded moments when she put herself in jeopardy for no reason, but as the film progressed her performance really grew on me. Moore and her character hold a quiet dignity and strength that really felt like one of the few things that was able to rise above this hellish world that Mierelles managed to create. Mark Ruffalo also played her husband in a very well done, naturalistic way. Gael Garcia Bernal is also very strong as the scenery chewing villain of the piece.
The production qualities are also quite good, particularly the art direction which conveys a really desolate mess of a post-apocalypse in the last few scenes and effectively makes the quarantine facility look every bit as awful as Meirelles seems to want it to be. The cinematography is also pretty interesting. The blind characters describe their condition as an extreme whiteness, like ?swimming through milk.? To match this Meirelles took a bold step and seemed to turn the white light on the set up to eleven, leaving the visuals of the movie completely washed out in whiteness for large portions of the film. I?m not sure that this really adds a whole lot to the movie, he would have had to take this a lot further if his goal was to make the audience completely empathize with the blind people on screen, but I don?t think it really hurts the movie much either. It?s an interesting decision that makes the movie unique if nothing else.
The movie does have a number of very good scenes, in fact very few of them fall flat, the problem is that they don?t gel together into a greater whole? at all. Fernando Meirelles has made two great films so far, and I?m sure he?ll make great films in the future, but this one straight up doesn?t work. There are elements here to respect, but the movie is unlikable in many ways. This was a nice try, but a disappointing failure nonetheless.

There?s an oft-quoted phrase in show business that ?dying is easy but comedy is hard.? This is probably true, comedy is incredibly hard because it?s a genre needs to make audiences react on an almost primal level. What?s perhaps even harder is horror. The brave souls who try to make good horror films also need to force an audience to react to something almost by reflex. This already complicated genre has another big hurdle too, namely that most horror productions are cheap cookie-cutter garbage that studios rush into production because horror fans are easily duped into seeing garbage, thus beefing up their profits. Still, every once in a while someone is able to get something interesting out of the genre, and the 2008 thriller The Strangers had a really promising trailer.

The Strangers opens with a title card explaining that what we?re about to see is a true story. Right. This tactic of pretending your movie is factually based was cute back in the 70s but who do they think they?re kidding now? You?d have to be a real moron to think any of this is actually true. Anyway, the film opens with a youngish couple (Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman) returning to the house they?re staying at after attending a wedding. Soon thereafter they hear a knock at the door, a woman asks if someone named Tamera is home, they send her away, but soon they hear another knock. The atmosphere quickly becomes unpleasant, suddenly a face emerges from the darkness, there?s someone in the house. The rest of the night these two are terrorized by three seemingly human stalkers wearing masks.

This is a slasher/home invasion film striped down to its barest elements. If nothing else, it?s a noble attempt to correct some of the wrongs and pitfalls that these movies frequently fall into. One of the problems it desperately tries to avoid is this recent trend of giving killers elaborate back stories a mistake that often robs the villains of their mystique and aura. Rather than go down that route, the film opts to give the killers absolutely no back-story whatsoever, nothing, not even at the end, not even the slightest hint as to why they?re doing all this. This is sort of a double edged sword, though. It does indeed avoid giving as much useless detail as Rob Zombie?s Halloween, but in doing so it even fails to give as much back-story as John Carpenter?s Halloween. Indeed, the killers don?t need a full back-story, but a mere MacGuffin would have been nice, the mystery works for a little while but one quickly begins to seriously wonder why they?re going through all this trouble.

The first thing one wonders when hearing about this concept is how they can make feature length slasher film with only two possible victims for the oncoming killers. The answer, frankly, is that they can?t. The film really cooks for about a half hour but it becomes quickly apparent that there?s really no place for these people to run or hide, they?re doomed, but there?s still another hour of stalking to go. As such, the killers seem to go through an inordinate amount of trouble in order to draw out the film?s plot. They spend a lot of time stalking the two and have full control of the situation, but for whatever reason they never seem to go in for the kill. The film quickly get really redundant after the killers get into the pattern of appear, scare the main people, disappear, and the without any real hope of escape the whole thing quickly becomes an exercise in inevitability.

Also, while the film avoids some of the genre?s clichés, there are plenty of them that the film still falls into. The main characters frequently do stupid things rather than escape from the situation. Also the killers have an annoying habit of being on frame and then disappearing in the second it takes for the character to glance away from the window. This is something a lot of killers in slasher movies do and it usually has little bearing on logic or the laws of physics. I sometimes picture these killers running and ducking out of frame in order to outrace the editor for no reason other than to be kind of creepy. There?s a particularly egregious use of this tactic here where one of the killers taps Scott Speedman on the shoulder only to disappear when he turns around.

The Strangers is a movie that ultimately doesn?t work, but it?s a noble effort. Bryan Bertino crafts the movie well and there?s a real attempt on display to make something better than the average Hollywood thriller. That first half hour really works and it?s unfortunate that it all leads up to a general anticlimax. Unfortunately this is a movie that tried to be a little too hardcore for its own good.

In retrospect, ?The X-Files? was a really innovative and influential show. I?ve seen each and every episode of the show, which would seem to suggest I?m a huge fan, but I?m not really. You?d never find me going to a convention or anything, but I found it to be very compelling T.V. that was always worth my time. Stylistically it was a very slick and well produced show, Fox put some real money into the show and the various directors managed to make each episode like a cool mini horror film. On a substance level it was one of the first mainstream shows to try to have a series arc, one that required the viewers to watch the show sequentially and keep track of what?s been going on. Of course the good days didn?t always last and the show clearly jumped the shark somewhere around season seven where it sort of devolved into self-parody. By the show?s end one got the feeling the writers may not have really had sort of been making the mythos up as they went (anyone accusing ?Lost? of doing that better take a closer look at this show?s anti-climax). Still, I was exited about the prospect of a new movie that would push all that mess aside and simply make a good story with the characters I loved, using the creativity that made the show famous.

When we last left Mulder and Scully they were wanted by the government and on the run. The movie begins a few years later and it turns out they weren?t in quite the dire condition we thought they were. The government has apparently quit looking for the two, who are now living together in a remote rural house. Scully (Gillian Anderson) is now working as a doctor at a catholic hospital called Our Lady of Sorrow. Mulder (David Duchovny) however is living as a recluse of sorts and seems to spend his days researching paranormal activities in newspaper articles. While working at the hospital Scully is approached by an FBI agent named Mosley Drummy (Alvin ?Xzibit? Joiner) who brings with them a simple offer; help them with a current case and the FBI would forgive them for their previous transgressions. This recent case involves a psychic priest named Joseph Crissman (Billy Connolly) who has been leading the FBI to a missing agent of theirs who appears to have been kidnapped by a pair of men involved in strange medical experiments. Crissman is a convicted pedophile, a the always skeptical Scully has absolutely no patience for his psychic abilities, while Mulder thinks there may be something to what he?s doing.

Mulder and Scully were first seen on the big screen in the 1998 film The X-Files: Fight the Future. That film was not spectacular, but it certainly mangaged to deliver what people wanted: an elongated X-Files story brought to the big screen with a significantly larger budget allowing for at least three set pieces that could never be done on the show?s budget. This new film, however doesn?t seem to have been given anywhere near the kind of budget ?Fight the Future? was given. As such, this is a much more character driven story than many would expect, in fact it?s almost more of a Mulder and Scully film than it is an X-Files movie.

The X-Files was never really an action based show, it was more about science fiction and horror, still it was about FBI Agents and as such it wasn?t really unreasonable to expect a few shootouts and chases from any given episode. This however, feels like a very non-violent take on the X-Files formula. In fact, I don?t think either of the lead characters so much as hold a gun throughout the duration of the film. There?s one mediocre foot chase, and a moderately thrilling finale, but nothing like the set pieces involved in ?Fight the Future.? As such it was probably a horrible idea to release this film in the middle of summer when audiences are particularly expecting thrills.

The film also isn?t nearly as supernatural in nature as most fans will be expecting. This isn?t based on the shows ?mythos? formula, but rather it is attempting to replicate what the show did with its stand-alone horror themed episodes. The film has a psychic investigator and some people doing bizarre surgeries, but as far as freaks of the week go, these guys aren?t all that freaky. In fact a lot of the material here feels more like something one would find in an episode of ?CSI.?

With no action, no science fiction, and minimal horror it would seem that the entirety of the film?s burden rests on the character driven drama. So is the show deeper and more thematic than an average episode of the show? Well? sort of, but I don?t think that?s going to be worth the eight-year wait for most of the show?s fans. The film deals with the relationship between Mulder and Scully after all these years and with the lingering longing Scully feels about the son she gave birth during the show?s run (I honestly don?t even remember what ended up happening to that kid). Ultimately it?s about Scully coming to terms with Mulder?s stubborn quest for the truth, which is reflected by Scully?s determination to save a child at her hospital.

This is ultimately more Scully?s movie than it is Mulder?s and in turn Gillian Anderson has a lot more to do here than Duchovny. Duchovny mostly delivers the same performance one would expect given his track record on the show, he?s a little more morose, but it?s mostly more of the same from Duchovney, which isn?t necessarily a bad thing. Anderson on the other hand is portraying a much-changed character. This is a Scully that has gone through so much and has become almost completely drained, but Anderson doesn?t overplay this. These are both very sad characters, one gets the notion that their lives have really been ruined by their work with the FBI; in this sense the movie is sort of a downer, as a fan of the show I feel these characters really deserve some peace and there?s nothing like that to be found here.

The supporting cast is nothing to write home about. Amanda Peet is a good actress but she?s on complete autopilot here. I didn?t expect much from Alvin ?Xzibit? Joiner, mainly because he?s a third rate rapper, but he was average enough. Billy Connolly, was a little more interesting, mainly because of his very weird Scottish accent. What?s a Scottish pedophile doing in West Virgina? I don?t know, but I still think he created a fairly good character with his performance.

The X-Files: I Want to Believe isn?t really a bad movie; it?s just not a good movie, at all. If this was made as a T.V. movie or direct to DVD it would be perfectly satisfactory, but that?s not what this is, it?s a theatrical movie ten years in the making. Chris Carter has made a movie that mostly stands up to scrutiny, but will satisfy few. It just isn?t the X-Files movie the fans wanted, it wasn?t the X-Files movie that would attract non-fans, and it certainly isn?t the X-Files movie I wanted.

The teaming of George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, and Harrison Ford was like a match made in heaven back in 1981 when Raiders of the Lost Ark hit theaters. Sure enough that team delivered a genuine classic, the blockbuster against which all popcorn movies should probably be judged. The three managed to follow this up with the often-misunderstood Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and the formulaic but still very fun Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The final movie was always envisioned as a grand finale and it ended the trilogy on a high note. The story could have easily ended there, but all three parties found themselves interested in revisiting the franchise, and after twenty years of rumors it was finally revealed that a fourth Indiana Jones film was on the way.
After all those years of waiting the fourth film, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, is finally out. Of course now the terrific trio of Lucas, Spielberg, and Ford are at much different stages of their careers. Spielberg seems to be at a creative peak after making such stellar projects as Minority Report and Munich. Lucas on the other hand finds himself richer than ever but hated by his former fans because of the problematic Star Wars prequel trilogy. Of the three Harrison Ford has perhaps fallen the furthest as he has gone from being the worlds biggest movie star to giving wooden performances in forgettable thrillers like Firewall.
These are three very different people than the Spielberg, Lucas, and Ford of 1989 which is what lead many people to question if they could recapture the spirit of the original trilogy. While I?d love to tell you that the three had indeed made follow-up film that felt just like those classics, the fact is that they haven?t and it may have been unrealistic for them to have tried.
This installment opens up in the Nevada desert circa 1957 where our hero, Indian Jones (Harrison Ford), has been captured by communist spies and brought to a government warehouse filled with crates (yes, that warehouse), which has been evacuated because of a nuclear weapons test. Theses communists, lead by the sword wielding Cornel Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett), force Jones to identify a crate containing mysterious remains. Jones is able to escape from this predicament, but the communists escape with the remains. Jones returns to his teaching position, where a young man named Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf) contacts him. Williams informs him that a former colleague of Jones? named Harold Oxley (William Hurt) had disappeared while looking for a Mayan artifact (a crystal skull) that he thought could lead him to the famed city of El Dorado. Jones and Williams then go to Peru in hopes of rescuing Oxley and finding the crystal skull.
It?s no secret that Harrison Ford is not the young man he once was, and he hasn?t really aged gracefully. At sixty six years old he really isn?t set to do a lot of the acrobatics of the previous films. More importantly, a lot of the coolness and quick witted charisma of the Indiana Jones character just don?t come off as well here as they did in previous films, nor do some of the seedier elements of the character. This is a serious problem, and a big part of why the Indiana Jones feel isn?t quite here.
Presumably because of Ford?s age, Jones is surrounded by more supporting characters than he was in the previous films. The most obvious of these characters is the Shia LaBeouf character who comes to Indy and tells him about the skull. Unfortunately, as sidekicks go Mutt Williams is uninspired. He?s a one-dimensional character without much personality. The best they could come up with to spice him up was to make him a 50s biker along the lines of John Travolta in Grease, a decision that felt tacked on at the last minute and mostly made the character more annoying rather than less bland. Furthermore, the reason this young greaser?s connection to the overall plot is rather confused and feels like a half-assed excuse to put a 20-somthing star onto the film?s poster. What?s worse the LaBeouf character actually takes Indiana?s place I a number of key action scenes like a sword fight on a pair of moving jeeps. This is a poor decision as Mutt Williams no Indiana Jones, in fact he?s not even up to the standards of Short Round as far as sidekicks go.
The film?s villains aren?t thought out much better either, Cate Blanchet clearly seems to be having fun playing Colonel Irina Spalko, but her talents are ultimately wasted on a character that feels like little more than a second-rate henchman straight out of a James Bond film. There?s also a Russian soldier played by Igor Jijikine who is little more than a large intimidating thug. Jones also has to face a traitorous character played by Ray Winstone, who changes sides numerous times in the movie but continues to be given a second chance by Jones. This is a henchman who should have just been shot early in the movie, and then killed again every time he pretends to be on Jones? side, yet Jones still falls for it. This would be fine if the audience was actually fooled, but that?s just not the case, it?s obvious that he?s just a straight up villain and it?s annoying whenever Jones gives him a second chance.
The audience being ahead of things is a general problem the film has, there are a number of moments that seem like they?re supposed to be genuine surprises but which are fairly obvious to the audience. The movie takes a very strange science fiction related twist midway through that would have been a decent surprise if it hadn?t been so heavily foreshadowed in the film?s rather awkward opening sequence. Similarly there is a surprise appearance of a character from a previous installment that isn?t much of a surprise if you saw the trailer or read the opening credits, and consequently the way that Shia LeBeouf ties in with that character isn?t too hard to figure out either.
The action sequences and special effects in here are not bad at all, but they?re not great or exceptional either. The film opens with a nice fight and chase, although this opening does end with a wildly misguided stunt involving a refrigerator. Later there is a nice jeep chase, a fight involving a bunch of pests and an interesting close encounter in a Mayan temple. These are all good sequences but they aren?t much better than what you?ll see in any other summer action movie, which is unfortunate because people like Steven Spielberg are supposed to be leading the way with this sort of thing, not merely keeping pace with the pack.
Really this is a very silly and shallow film, of course the other films in the franchise are just as silly and shallow but they succeeded simply because there was a certain perfection to them, the characters all worked, the scenes were top notch. Silly movies like this are only as good as the sum of their parts and the sum here just doesn?t add up. The film is certainly not incompetent, the technical elements are all fine, the story flows well enough and none of the actors are bad, but this is not the event everyone was waiting for.
I can?t help but wonder why this film was made, it sure as hell wasn?t because Lucas and Spielberg were just dying to tell the story of the quest for a crystal skull, and it certainly wasn?t because they had dreamed up a lot of kick-ass action scenes that just needed to be filmed. The truth is that the team was probably hoping that if they tried real hard they could make lightning strike a fourth time, which in retrospect was probably a fools errand. This is the same star, the same director, the same producer, the same composer, but the same creative spark just isn?t there twenty years later.
I really just wish Lucas and Spielberg had just left well enough alone. The truth is that three film was more than enough running time to explore the ideas Lucas and Spielberg had with the series. Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade finished With Jones and his posse riding off into the sunset, a perfect ending for the series. The fact that this film ruins that great ending is probably what annoys me most about Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, it was a sequel that everyone thought they wanted but which really never needed to be made, I hope the people trying to dig up every other franchise from the 80s would take a lesson from this and reconsider.

Conventional wisdom says that the horror genre tends to work in cycles; in other words, whenever there?s a successful and original horror movie it gets followed by a whole lot of earnest ripoffs. After Halloween we got a whole lot of masked killer movies, after The Ring we got a million remakes of Japanese horror movies involving ghost kids, and after Saw the wave of so called ?torture porn? movies emerged. The existence of the recent horror film The Ruins suggests that we are now beginning a wave of movies that are ripping off the 2006 cave-dwelling creature feature The Descent.

As The Descent was only a moderate commercial success, I doubt this is going to be as widespread a wave as the above examples, but the resemblance between the two movies is no coincidence. Both are about groups of young people who find themselves stuck in a dark place populated by mysterious creepy-crawlies that have apparently been there for centuries. While the all woman group of spelunkers in their thirties was a relatively creative set up for The Descent, The Ruins goes the more predictable route for its group: American college students on vacation in Mexico.

While vacationing the students hear about an ancient Mayan ruin that isn?t even on the map and decide to go visit it, what could possibly go wrong with that plan? Once they get there they are greeted by a bunch of angry villagers carrying bows and pistols. The locals start shouting at them in a native dialect that the students can?t understand; suddenly the angry villager shoots one of the students dead and the rest run into the ruins for cover. But they soon find that what?s waiting for them in the ruins is much more frightening than what is waiting outside.

There are as many as six people here, why such a larger group? So there will be more people to kill off of course. Killing people off is the main goal here. Like The Descent, this isn?t quite as gore dependant as something like Saw, but it also isn?t afraid at all to let the plasma flow once things start going wrong. It does however venture into Hostel territory during one gratuitously sadistic scene involving an amputation, though it may have been a bit more restrained theatrically than it was in the unrated version I saw.

The Ruins is definitely a well photographed movie, cinematographer Darious Khondiji is able to give the whole film a nice orange-ish glow, though I do wish that director Carter Smith had been a little more careful with the angles as the film tends to over use close-ups. I also rather liked the locations that were used; apparently the entire film was shot in Australia, which surprised me as the scenery did convincingly look like Mexico.

As a whole this is a set up for a pretty good thriller were it not for two fatal flaws, the first being that the characters are completely stock. While I?m no fan of Eli Roth?s Hostel, it did at least manage to give its characters some degree of personality and individuality; they weren?t three dimensional by any means, but at least I got to know them somewhat and care if they lived or died. Here however the young and the damned are completely indistinguishable kids that only exist to provide cannon fodder for the director.

The second fatal flaw comes when the film?s big twist emerges, I don?t want to give too much away, but let?s just say that it becomes very clear very early that each and every one of these kids is doomed, there?s no chance for any of them to survive. As soon as this becomes clear any suspense the film could have built is flushed right down the toilet, with no chance of survival the film becomes an exercise in delaying the inevitable, the question goes from being ?will they survive?? to ?how painfully will they die?? and that?s sort of a sadistic goal if you ask me. Some may argue that this isn?t supposed to be a suspense movie, that the twist turns this into a drama about human nature. I don?t know if that was the filmmaker?s intent, but if it was then its attempt at drama is undermined by problem A: the boring and indistinguishable characters.

I?m probably underselling the movie to a certain degree, the movie may be derivative and somewhat pointless, but it at least isn?t particularly boring. If you?re looking for a contemporary horror movie you could probably do a lot worse than The Ruins, but low standards can only take a movie so far.

I?ve been a huge fan of the James Bond franchise for at least a decade, and my fanatical love for the series will probably show itself in this review. Bond is one of the few things that I can be a little fanboyish about, but don?t worry, you probably won?t see this side of me again, at least not until Watchmen comes out. The coming of a new Bond movie is always something I look forward to with excitement, but I?ve had a bad feeling about this one for a while. The main concern I had about the project was the decision to hire Marc Forster to direct. Forster is one of my least favorite directors working today, his film?s tend to get bogged down in whimsy and he?s the biggest Academy Award panderer this side of Edward Zwick. The guy is basically a poor man?s Ron Howard, who in turn is a poor man?s Robert Zemeckis, who is himself a poor man?s Steven Spielberg.

Another cause for alarm was that this would be a direct sequel to Casino Royale, an unprecedented move for the series. There was a little bit of continuity in some of the early Bond films, mainly revolving around the villain Blofeld, but for the most part they remained self contained stories. What?s more, I had a lot of mixed feeling about Casino Royale to begin with. I was all for making Bond a darker character, and I liked what Daniel Craig in the role, but I was not at all enthusiastic about the notion of ?rebooting? the whole series and making Bond a young agent who just now achieved his 00 status. It turns out; all of my concerns were completely valid. The newest Bond film, Quantum of Solace, is a mess.

The film picks up moments after Casino Royale?s coda. Bond has the man he captured at the end of that film in the trunk of his car, and he?s headed for a safe house. An ensuing car chase acts as the film?s underwhelming pre-credit sequence. The title sequence is not too bad, it has a nice desert theme and the song is all right. Soon thereafter, it?s revealed that the man Bond had captured was part of a SPECTRE-like evil organization called Quantum. Bond?s mission is to investigate this organization. His investigation will lead him to Haiti and Bolivia, where he will track down another of Quantum?s operatives named Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric), who is working with the CIA on a mysterious evil deed.

Few, if any, of the Bond movies are truly great; in fact they are only great insomuch as they are part of a greater whole. Every Bond movie is part of a forty year cinematic tradition, and that?s why we?re still interested in these otherwise kind of marginal action movies. Casino Royale, striped away a whole lot of what we go to Bond movies to see, but it got away with it because of some clever screenwriting. Most of the mission elements were addressed in that film, but in self aware ways, for example: Bond never ordered a martini ?shaken not stirred? in the film, but he did order a number of other drinks that got closer and closer to the famous drink. In other words, he got closer and closer to being the Bond we all know and love by the end of the film, and by the end he was pretty much the Bond we all know and love. It was a very self contained character arc, one that was finished.

Quantum of Solace would have been an excellent opportunity to simply take this fully formed Bond, and put him into a traditionally structured James Bond adventure, but the writers are under the mistaken impression that Casino Royale didn?t finish his arc. The film plays out like the second half of Casino Royale, which is straight up revisionist history. Casino Royale was based on a self contained Ian Fleming which more or less ended exactly where the film ended.

The story here is simply a mess. Casino Royale benefitted immensely from the aforementioned Ian Fleming I was based on, that story helped ground that movie and kept it down to earth, it?s an element in that film?s success which is frequently overlooked. Quantum of Solace is not based on a novel by Ian Fleming, or anyone else. It?s based on a half-assed story the writing team probably though up in a week and never refined. The film?s plot is very hard to follow, which would be all right if this were some kind of elaborate yarn, but it isn?t. In fact, if the story were told properly it would be rather simple, that?s the film?s worst sin; it?s confusing rather than complicated and the root cause of this is poor storytelling. This is the same problem that sunk the third Pirates of the Caribbean film, and it may be for the same reason: they?re trying to make up a direct sequel to a movie that wasn?t really planned out as a multi-part story but which did have a cliff hanger of sorts.

An unwelcomed addition to the film?s storyline is a political subplot about the CIA playing along with the villains in order to secure Bolivian oil. The intelligence community working with unsavory elements is probably an unfortunate reality in the world, but there?s really no place for this material in a James Bond movie. Don?t get me wrong, I have no problem with political statements in film when it?s appropriate, if this were something like Syriana or The Constant Gardener it wouldn?t be a problem. The thing is: this isn?t Syriana, in fact it isn?t even Body of Lies, it?s a James Bond movie. The setting for this movie doesn?t even begin to resemble the real world, there?s a SPECRE like organization behind everything and there are action scenes so unrealistic it would make Arnold Schwarzenegger blush. No one is going to take the politics in a movie like this seriously and most of the arguments don?t really stand up to scrutiny anyway, the politics frankly just seems like a distraction to hide the film?s ongoing story problems.

I maybe could have let the story telling off the hook if I thought the action sequences really delivered, but they don?t. Many have complained of the film?s use of a Greengrass-esque camera and editing style. I?m usually a defender of this style of filmmaking, but in this case they?re right. The think about the ?shaky cam? is one has to know when it is appropriate to use the technique and when it isn?t. In the case of the Bourne series it is appropriate because those are movies about a man who?s constantly confused about his situation, he has no memory and very little control of what?s going on around him. James Bond may have the same initials as Bourne, but as spies they couldn?t be more different. Bond is never confused about his situation, in fact his complete control over everything that goes on around him is a big part of what makes him Bond. As such the ?shaky cam? is completely inappropriate. What?s more the technique really needs to be done just right or it won?t work at all, in the hands of someone who?s honed the style like Paul Greengrass it can work perfectly, but in the hands of someone like Marc Forster, who?s never made an action movie before, it will fall flat. The style here has been blatantly ripped off from the Bourne franchise, it feels like a derivative imitation of the real thing.

I would have been more forgiving of the style if the scenes themselves had been a little more inspired, unfortunately, even without the ripped off style most of these scenes were fairly cookie cutter. There?s a pretty standard car chase, a middling boat chase, a particularly bad airplane scene. The final action scene is helped by the fact that it?s at least an interesting location that they are exploding, aside from that the only creative action scene is a foot chase early on which ends with some interesting rope acrobatics, but the aforementioned editing style is particularly badly done in that scene.

I might, just might, have been a little more forgiving of all that if the film had only stuck to the traditions of the James Bond franchise. I can forgive a whole lot in this series if only because they are continuing a film tradition. When Casino Royale ignored a lot of the traditions it opened it up to a much higher standard then the rest of the films in the series, but it delivered the quality required by this new standard. Quantum of Solace doesn?t. The film is a mess, it?s a poor film in its own rights and to make matters worse it pisses on a film tradition that is important to millions of fans.

So, what do I want out of the next Bond film? Well, what the producers need to do is need to make sure they only make changes to the formula that need to be changed rather then change things just for the sake of change. To steal a phrase from Barrack Obama, they need to examine the series with a scalpel rather than a hatchet. For example, they were right to de-emphasize gadgets, they were becoming ridiculous and were often used as a crutch by the writers, but did they need to eliminate Q division altogether? I don?t think so. What was the point of moving the gun barrel from the beginning to the end? There was no reason, they just pissed off bond fans for no reason with that move. IT was right to go for a darker, more down to earth James Bond, that doesn?t mean turning him into a moody robot. Bond is a character who?s really a brawler but who wears a suit and a smirk in order to infiltrate classy locations. Also don?t assume Daniel Craig gold out of bad material, if you don?t give him meaty scripts he?s not going to be all that different from Pierce Brosnan or Timothy Dalton. I put up with this rebooting silliness when it delivered Casino Royale, but this garbage will not do. I want James Bond back, the real James Bond, not this imposter.

This independent film set in northern New York state tells the story of a down on her luck woman living in a trailer home who turns to smuggling people over the Canadian border in order to afford a double-wide. Mellissa Leo is the best part of this, I?ve liked her since her work on the TV show Homicide: Life on the Street, but outside of her performance I wasn?t too impressed with this. The story does not seem overly meaningful or original and the dialogue is nothing to write home about. Furthermore the technical aspects are amateurish and not in a charming way. I don?t really want to give something that?s this low budget too hard a time for its production values, but this thing makes Once look like Blade Runner? that?s an exaggeration but you get my point. Most of the film takes place at night, which is a bad move when your director seems unable to light anything properly. I also really hated the character of her teenage son and the kid who played him, his actions rarely ring true and the whole movie suffers from it?s characters inconsistent decisions. When I looked it up on Wikipedia I read that the writer says that the movie?s main theme is that of ?a mother's love for her children being a culturally universal trait? and that ?she hoped her film would enable audiences to break down their assumptions about others around them.? Knowing this, I hate the movie even more, who the hell needs a movie to tell them that Indian and Pakistani women love their children?

Sylvester Stallone was once on top of the world; in the mid eighties he had two extremely popular franchises and was second only to Schwarzenegger for the title of ?action-star of the decade.? Unfortunately for Stallone, he was also in some of the crappiest action movies ever made, aside from a few exceptions like Cliffhanger and Demolition Man he wasn?t in very many good movies that weren?t in the Rocky or Rambo series. As such he was headed for obscurity until two years ago when he tried to revitalize the Rocky series with good box office results. Now Stallone is trying to do the same with the Rambo series with the creatively titled Rambo.
Rocky Balboa was, if nothing else, a very nice try. However, it had one major advantage that Rambo doesn?t have; it was trying to bring back a series that one did have some degree of respectability, something the Rambo series has never had. Many people will point to the original Rambo film, First Blood, and call it a step above its sequels. I however may be in the minority in thinking the second and third installments were better than the original, which had the pretention to consider itself a character study. First Blood had all the poor acting, weak story, lame dialogue, and stupid politics of a standard 80s action film but didn?t actually have any of the action to back it up. The sequel is even worse on all of the above criteria, but it also had a high body count and some good explosions, so at least there was something to enjoy, and when it was merely trying to be an action movie a lot of its problems went from being real negatives and became campy quirks.
Because I enjoyed the high body count installments of the series, I looked forward to the sequel which looked like it would be even more ridiculous than its predecessors. The violent trailer that found its way to Youtube featured everything I wanted to see in a Rambo trailer: a decapitation, a man getting his stomach slit open, a man getting his throat ripped out, and a man getting his head blown open by a chain gun. This was a very nice thing to see after the shock of the sellout PG-13 rated Live Free or Die Hard. I had no expectations of enjoying this as a fine piece of cinema, but I did think it would be a wild ?so bad its good? night at the cinema. Unfortunately the film did not live up to these very low expectations.
Its been twenty years since John Rambo?s last adventure, and he?s found his way to Thailand where he makes a living running a small boat and capturing snakes for a local freakshow. His life is suddenly interrupted when a group of missionaries approach him trying to charter his boat for a trip to Burma (which for some reason is never referred to by its modern name, Myanmar, in the film). Rambo is weary to go because Burma is a warzone and he?s seen enough killing for one lifetime. However he does eventually cave and give them a ride, as they plan to use an overland route to leave, Rambo decides to return to Thailand. Soon thereafter the missionaries find themselves kidnapped by the Burmese military. Rambo is soon given the task of guiding a group of mercenaries back to the drop-off point in Burma.
Setting the film in Burma was the first mistake Stallone made in Rambo. Firstly, it fails to bring Rambo into a new environment. The original Rambo movie was set in an American forest, the second was set in a jungle, and the third is a desert. Symmetry would suggest that the next Rambo film would take place in a new environment, possibly a cold or urban environment. Instead Stallone set this new installment back in another Southeast Asian jungle.
The other, larger problem with setting the film in Burma is that it put the film in the center of a brutal, real world conflict. This wouldn?t be a problem if Stallone simply ignored the full extent of the Burmese conflict, but he didn?t, the film is filled with images this action film has no right to show. The film opens with disturbing news footage of real atrocities occurring in the Burmese civil war, and then proceeds to show a shocking scene of innocent Burmese women being forced to run through a mine field before being killed by the military. Later we witness a village being massacred in full graphic detail, including not so subtle suggestions of rape and torture.
This is hardly the kind of fun violence I signed up for in this film; it?s disturbing and wholly unpleasant. In the context of a serious drama about the Burmese conflict such material could easily be justified, but that?s not what this is, it?s a Rambo movie; we go to these to enjoy mass murder, not be sickened by it. Any one of these scenes could have been tolerable in isolation, after all they need to establish that the bad guys are sick SOBs, but Stallone goes way to far here. Stallone claims he was trying to raise awareness of the Burmese Civil War, but couldn?t he have found a more appropriate way to do this than a Rambo movie? After all, the last time this series tried to endorse a regime it was in support of the Afghan Mujahedeen in their ?holy war? against the evil soviets. This endorsement is absolutely hysterical in hindsight and one wonders why Stallone would risk making the same mistake twice.
However, the film also fails when it tries to be a proper mindless action film, simply because Sylvester Stallone turns out to be completely unqualified to direct action sequences. Unlike the Rocky series, Stallone never found himself directing any of the Rambo films, and the reason why is clear here. During the aforementioned village massacre for example, Stallone tries to pull a Saving Private Ryan and create a sense of chaos and intensity by using handheld camera work and speeding up the action. These kinds of tactics can work if they?re done by someone like Steven Spielberg, Paul Greengrass, or even Michael Bay who knows what they?re doing, unfortunately Stallone is not on that list. As a result the scenes are completely disorienting and kind of look like they?re being fast-forwarded. But really, regardless of how well it?s done, these methods shouldn?t be used in the first place in a film that was all about being an old-school action film. Also Stallone made the regrettable decision to use CGI blood instead of regular squibs, which would have been acceptable if it looked better but it didn?t, it was poorly done.
So what is there to like in Rambo, well the film is as gory as it promises to be and there are some real moments that will make you say ?Daayuum!? Stallone does maintain a certain rough charisma even when he has to work with his own bad dialogue; it?s nice to see a real tough guy on screen in this day in age. Also there?s a British mercenary played by Graham McTavish who steals the show midway through with a lot of very amusing dialogue.
The moral of this story is that Rambo movies are at their best when they aren?t trying to be respectable. I really wanted to enjoy this as a nice fun action film, but Stallone found himself taking this character way too seriously. Even if he didn?t, his poor ability behind the camera still wouldn?t have made this work.

The trailer for Patricia Riggen?s Under the Same Moon boldly proclaims that ?not since Cinema Paradiso has a film captured the hearts of audiences around the world [as much as Under the Same Moon].? Given that the movie swiftly came and went in theaters it can safely be said that that proclamation was, at best, wishful thinking on the part of Fox Searchlight and the Weinstein Company. Still it makes one wonder why foreign movies are having such a hard time breaking into the mainstream as of late. Pan?s Labyrinth came real close to breaking through two years ago, but never quite became a sensation along the line of Ill Postino or Crouching Tiger. My personal conspiracy theory on this is that the studios are deliberately sabotaging their releases so they can more easily do Hollywood remakes. But that?s a rant for a different day, because no one is going to want to remake this thing, and nor should they. The only reason this was largely ignored is that it?s sappy and manipulative.

The film follows dual stories of a Mexican boy named Carlito (Adrian Alonso) and his mother Rosario (Kate del Castillo) who?s working illegally on the other side of the border in Los Angeles. Rosario has been gone for four years and Carlito?s father has been out of the picture for even longer. Carlito?s only contact with his mother ocurrs when she calls him every Sunday, but after one fateful Sunday call he finds his grandmother dead. With this in mind, Carlito decides to travel alone from his town in Mexico to his mother in L.A. and wants to get there before the next Sunday call is made so his mother won?t worry. After the local coyote refuses to help him Carlito must rely on the kindness of strangers in order to get across the border and reach his mother.

Believability is probably the first o many problems this movie has. Over the years there have been a lot of precocious children on the screen, but it takes a special kind of precociousness for a nine year old to independently think that he can travel hundreds of miles across a foreign border, against all warnings from his elders, alone and on a very limited budget. Many adults are killed or arrested trying to do the same, yet this kid succeeds relatively unscathed. Every time the kid is about to get in trouble the film?s script has him coincidentally run into a random stranger willing to help him, usually at great expense to themselves.

Immigration was a huge issue for about a month last year, now it?s pretty well on the back burner but it remains a controversial subject. This film?s take on the subject is one-sided and simple: all illegal immigrants are saintly figures while everyone who isn?t an illegal immigrant is naïve, mean, or an obstacle. The only American citizens to be found here are nameless brutal cops, fascists with the gall to raid a sleazy tomatoes plantation who ?generously? decide to hire a nine year old for dangerous work. Also to found are a pair of Second generation Mexican immigrants who are inept college students incapable of the simplest smuggling actions. But the most offensively un-nuanced of the American characters is a thoroughly witch-like and seemingly senile old rich woman who coldly fires Carlito?s mother for the most minor of offences without even paying for work that?s been completed. Admittedly, the mother?s other boss seemed relatively normal, but one token non-sociopath American character is not enough to make up for this insanely manipulative look at a major issue.

I?m sure one can find many Americans who do act a lot like the above examples, but only selectively choosing those types as examples and juxtaposing them with the saintly illegal immigrants here is intellectually dishonest. If someone like Lou Dobbs decided to produce a movie that featured nothing but lazy, drug dealing, or diseased immigrants people would label it propagandistic or at the very least a gross simplification of a complex issue and rightly so, Under the Same Moon is exactly the same but from a different side.

The film does step off its soapbox and focus strictly on its saccharine story in the third act, but this doesn?t help either because when divorced from its sophomoric politics is still a lame, sappy story. The movie is just as manipulative emotionally as it is politically; its trivialization of human suffering and overbearing score make Frank Capra movies look downright subtle.

This is little more than the hallmark card version of the immigrant experience and it pales in comparison to other better movies on the subject like El Norte, In America, and Maria Full of Grace. The movie was mostly ignored in theaters and should also be avoided on DVD. Speaking of which, the subtitles on the DVD I watched were actually captions, which continued through the film?s English potions and forced the viewer to read through descriptions of sound effects. This annoyance was yet another reason to leave this thing on the DVD shelf.

When The Sixth Sense came out in 1999, M. Night Shyamalan?s style was like a breath of fresh air. In an age of ADD pandering filmmakers like Michael Bay and Roland Emmerich, Shyamalan was a young director who had great success with a more patient style of filmmaking. He followed this up with Unbreakable and Signs, which were both very strong continuations of this new cinematic voice. Everything looked great for Shyamalan, but then everything suddenly went to hell. Shyamalan?s next film, The Village, was well crafted but it was also an exercise in futility complete with a lame twist and a predictable ending. Still, The Village had its moments and may have simply been a small stumble in Shyamalan?s career had he not followed it up with the abominable Lady in the Water, an incoherently bizarre film which seemed to be the work of an absolute madman.

All this time I continued to be a Shyamalan apologist simply on the basis that he had only made two bad films and three good films, which seemed to still be a decent average. For that reason I decided I was still going to give his next film a chance, especially since it had an intriguing trailer and a good concept. Unfortunately, The Happening, is not the comeback I was hoping for, in fact it might just be further confirmation of what I had feared, that M. Night Shyamalan has completely lost it.

The film doesn?t take long to get into its premise; it opens in central park on a clear morning. All of a sudden all the people in the park stand still, suddenly a woman pulls out a hairpin and stabs herself in the neck. Elsewhere in New York an entire construction crew jumps off the top of a building to their deaths. Shortly thereafter in Philadelphia a high school biology teacher named Elliot Moore (Mark Wahlberg) is interrupted in the middle of his speech about the disappearance of bees and is informed that this wave of suicides is spreading throughout the entire Northeast, and is thought to be the doing of a terrorist attack. School is dismissed early and Elliot?s colleague Julian (John Leguizamo) invites his to flee with his daughter (Ashlyn Sanchez) on a train to Harrisburg. Elliot brings his estranged wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel) along as the four try desperately to outrun this strange outbreak that is causing mass death.

I?ll start with the positive here, as bad as this is, it isn?t nearly as non-sensical or boring as Lady in the Water. Unfortunately this is probably still worse than The Village and isn?t anywhere close to being as good as his first three films. Shyamalan does at least seem to have the germ of a very good idea here. The mass suicide scenes are very well made and effectively creepy especially in the first ten minutes or so. These scenes incorporate a level of violence that has previously been unseen in Shyamalan?s work (the film?s R-Rating has become a major point in its advertising campaign) and this occasional gore is an interesting addition to Shyamalan?s somber style. The catch is, that everything around these few set pieces is absolutely god-awful.

Interestingly, this is a film that manages to fail in a way that is the exact opposite of how The Village and Lady in the Water failed. Those two movies were both very well crafted and acted, but were let down by misguided and/or insane stories. Here the story really could have worked, but the acting and dialogue is shockingly bad. I?m not entirely sure why the acting here is so bad; Wahlberg, Deschanel, and Leguizamo are all talented performers and Shyamalan has traditionally been something of an actors director, getting great work out of Bruce Willis, Mel Gibson, and Paul Giamatti even when his films don?t generally work.

Here every performer seems to have no idea how to dial their work back at all, there?s massive overacting all around. Wahlberg speaks through the whole movie like in an oddly confused tone and often comes off really whiney, Deschanel is just as unnaturalistic and neither is able to create really effective characters. John Leguizamo just seems completely miscast and none of his natural wit is able to really come through. I don?t think I can really blame any of these actors for this mess, as all of them are uncharacteristically weak, as are the supporting characters. I can only assume that it was Shyamalan?s neglect that lead to such wild overacting in this thing.

I?m sure the actors weren?t helped at all by this messy script?s terrible dialogue. This script feels like a first draft to me, the dialogue is incredibly unpolished here. The actors are frequently forced to try and make ridiculous lines like ?If you take my daughter?s hand you better mean it? work. The exposition here is also quite bad, with the marriage problems of the two leads handled in the most awkward way imaginable. Compare the handling of this couple?s back-story with the careful prose used to explain Bruce Willis? past in The Sixth Sense or the family?s situation in Signs and you?ll get an idea of just how far M. Night Shyamalan has fallen.

The film is in many ways an inferior retread of Signs, as both are movies dealing with troubled families (in this case a surrogate family) dealing with a mass crisis situation. This in itself is a disappointment, as crazy as the Shyamalan?s last two films were, they at least were trying different things and didn?t feel like recycled stories. The film mostly avoids the general insanity that characterized Lady in the Water, but he gets damn close to that level of confounding silliness in the third act where the group find themselves in some really strange encounters with hillbillies. Particularly strange is the sudden and jarring appearance of an old hillbilly woman named Mrs. Jones (Betty Buckley). The behavior of this character defies any type of conventional action by a member of the human species and Buckley is forced to give one of the most over the top performances in recent memory. Even stranger is how long the group puts up with this clearly disturbed person.

Throughout the film characters continually find themselves acting in strange and illogical ways. For instance, mid way through the movie a crowd realizes that the outbreak mainly attacks areas with large numbers of people, and that it?s beginning to target increasingly small groups of people. So the first thing these geniuses do is decide to ?Stay together? which would be great advice in most slasher movies but which is completely illogical given that A. there isn?t a single thing that teamwork can do to save anyone from a poisonous gas and B. that?s clearly just going to make them more of a target. Later Wahlberg finds himself behaving in a very Lady in the Water kind of a way by deciding to base his decisions using the scientific method, which means he sits and says he?s sorting out the variables before coming to the obvious conclusion that he needs to run as fast as he can.

Spoiler Warning, skip ahead a paragraph if you don?t want to hear about a twist that emerges early in the film?s second act. About half way through, Shymalan reveals that this wave of violence is the result of plants deliberately[I] giving off chemical pheromones to defend themselves from the polluting humans. You read that right, this is a heavy handed message about environmentalism. Firstly, that?s stupid. Secondly, the message is handled in a remarkable inelegant way. The film begins with Wahlberg conveniently setting up the theme is a direct way via a lecture to his high school class. Throughout the film Wahlberg slowly decides that this is the reason for the attack without doing a single test. The logic is never clear, why is it only attacking groups when it seems these plants could just as easily just let the poison loose everywhere at once. Also why are certain people, like the woman at the beginning, seemingly immune for the purposes of looking scared as everyone around them is dying? The environmentalist message is just silly. At least [I]The Village kept its heavy-handed message as an (obvious) allegory; this film just bludgeons the audience with Shyamalan?s message of ?respecting nature.?

I?ve tried to support Shyamalan for so long, I had hoped he had learned his lesson from the horrible reaction to Lady in the Water, but this is another disaster. He at least rid this film of some of the problems he usually has, there?s no director?s cameo and there isn?t really a twist ending, but the bigger problems of hubris is still in full swing. Shyamalan just needs to quit making these high concept twilight Zone episodes and try something new because this well is getting really dry.