Notes On A Scandal

Notes on a Scandal is pure melodrama, but fortunately it’s the good kind of melodrama, the kind with loquacious characters in excitingly calamitous circumstances. Anyone who senses they would scoff at such falsified intensities should stay clear of this film, but lovers of tightly scripted and well acted dangerous liaisons should quite easily fall in love with this movie. Writer Patrick Marber’s previous screenplay adaptation, Closer, is probably a good frame of reference for those unsure of where they stand on the matter.

Judi Dench gives a real wallop of a twisted performance as Barbra, a strict teacher at a London school who befriends the school’s new art teacher, Sheba, (Cate Blanchett) and slowly reveals certain genuinely chilling sociopathic tendencies. When Sheba begins an affair with a young student, Barbra takes it upon herself to use the incident to keep Sheba in her debt. “I could gain everything by doing nothing” Barbara says in her narration. It’s Dench’s movie to control and she makes it something extraordinary. From the scowling, cruel hearted demeanor of Barbra’s darkest moments to the odd, uncomfortable humor of watching the rigid schoolteacher attempt to dance, it’s all just so eerily perfect. It’s rare to find such humanity and complexity in cinematic stalkers. She’s creepy and unsettling, but we still relate to her in an interesting and unnerving sort of way. Despite her obvious issues with mental health, she does have a very keen sense of perception and an initially enjoyable straightforward demeanor. What the film does most brilliantly is quietly disarm her, making us see bit by bit the cracks in her logic and the corruption of her agenda until we realize that we’ve been wooed by a crazy woman. It lures us in as she lures in her prey, with a delightfulness that makes us forget the minor quirks and ticks. Watching the wonderful Cate Blanchett finally explode in agony against Barbra for all of her obscenely vicious abuses of power is like a giant release for everyone observing the film. She’s a sly predator who has trapped us all in her warped little game. This is not so much a story about scandal, as it is about the way people manipulate and betray one another in ways that seem (to themselves) utterly logical. There’s no moustache twirling villain here, but rather merely people selfishly aiming to serve their own needs and destroying others in the process.

Grade: A

Pan's Labyrinth

Guillermo Del Toro’s latest fantasy, Pan’s Labyrinth, is one of the most stunning and imaginative films of the year. It’s a fairy tale that’s as traumatic and harrowing as the grimmest of Grimm stories. Like most great heroines destined to go down the rabbit hole, Ofelia is a young girl with a dark family history and a difficult life. Her father died as a rebel fighter during the battles of the Spanish revolution and as the war nears its end, her mother remarries a cruel Spanish Captain whom Ofelia both loathes and fears. She becomes a prisoner in her own home when her pregnant mother moves to the Captain’s villa and submits Ofelia to his violent temper and ill will for them both (his only real concern is keeping her mother alive long enough to protect his unborn son). It’s a dark and violent set of circumstances for a child to face, and Ofelia, a lover of fairy tales, reacts warmly to discovering she has entered into one herself. According to a faun she meets, she is the princess of a world without pain and suffering who has been reborn in human form and she must only complete three tasks to reclaim her royal throne.

The entire story comes with a well rounded sense of adventure, horror, and drama. The war is not merely a back drop, but actually the core of everything that is going on throughout the film. Del Toro not only creates an astoundingly beautiful and eerie dream world of fairies and fauns, but uses it as a vehicle with which to comment upon the events of the time and the characters of the film. He has made such a pure, vital, and entertaining film that it’s hard to question a single frame. It exists in its own league of uniqueness and creativity amongst many other impressive films this year. More importantly, it truly is an emotional and political work of subtle art that uses story and narrative to both playfully and painfully examine humanity, war, and the innocence of children. It’s a perfectly blended mix of exciting entertainment and undeniable artistry. Del Toro looks to be the sort of rare director that can serve piping hot morals wrapped up in a candy coating without seeming duplicitous or manipulative. He’s not hiding from his ideas. He’s effortlessly injecting them into his colorful adventure stories and fierce moments of messy and gruesome war. Del Toro also has the wonderful gift of making fantasies that hurt with as much realism as the most sophisticated contemporary dramas. From the opening frame, it is clear that Pan’s Labyrinth will not have a happy ending and it shouldn’t. There needs to be consequences and difficulties to really connect an audience with the characters they are seeing. In this film, anything is possible and everyone is as real a person as the one sitting beside you in the theater. It’s an uncompromised and perfectly realized vision of complex characters in an elaborate world of mystery. Pan’s Labyrinth is a very beautiful film about a very ugly time in the world, and it is honestly unlike anything you have ever seen.

Grade: A+

Curse of the Golden Flower

Curse of the Golden Flower is the latest film from acclaimed director Zhang Yimou, the man behind elegant martial arts epics such as Hero and House of Flying Daggers. With a riveting dramatic story set during China’s Tang Dynasty and intense action sequences done in a darkly beautiful style, the film is more than an ample treat for the eyes and ears.

Gong Li and Chow Yun Fat play the feuding Empress and Emperor of the nation respectively. Both of the unhappy spouses concoct plans against the other and an all out family feud emerges with tons of twists and surprises. Curse is much more of a straight drama than Zhang’s more high profile films. Much of the movie is packed with wicked manipulations and vicious rivalries amongst the members of the Emperor’s own family. There’s much less fighting and much more character interplay, which makes for something different but a tad disappointing. There was such a thrill to be had with the overwhelmingly beautiful fight sequences in both Hero and Daggers. Here the violence is brief and unpleasant. Zhang handles it all with a masterful eye and there is a twisted beauty to his perfectly choreographed battle sequences, but it’s just not the same as in his past films where characters sliced each other while twirling through trees or prancing across water. Those fights had solid rhythms and dazzling, poetic visual lyricism. Curse is a much more grounded and disheartening experience, but it still musters enough high quality drama and carnage to make for something truly involving and ambitiously hard hearted. The softness of Zhang’s fight style has been tampered with and altered to reproduce violence that feels as brutal as it really would be under actual circumstances. It’s nice to see a fight film with such sophistication, but I had slightly higher hopes for this movie. Despite all its positive attributes, it comes off feeling somewhat stagnant and unremarkable. The pieces are all impressive, but they don’t quite come together in a way that really leaves a mark. That’s not to say that it is not at all a good film. It’s quite good and highly enjoyable. There’s just something a little too average about it and honestly not too much that really carries any sort of exceptional potency. It’s a minor little flesh wound of a movie that impacts you briefly, but ceases to be memorable after it’s gone.

Grade: B

We Are Marshall

Director McG, a man with no more promising film credits than Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, makes a smart leap into more sophisticated cinema with We Are Marshall, a better than average inspirational sports drama with a sleek look and easy delivery. The film chronicles the ups and downs of Marshall University and the surrounding town after the tragic 1970 plane crash that killed 75 players, coaches, and supporters of the Marshall Varsity football team. The film sulks in saccharine remorse for a bit too long and often feels buried in the clichés of its overdone and limited genre, but it’s a more fully realized story than most movies of this type. It’s not just about an underdog team that’s destined to win the big game in the end. It’s really about the players, coaches, and townspeople as they move on with their lives after a harrowing tragedy.

The underrated Matthew McConaughey wields a wonderful, good hearted charm as Jack Lengyel, the man who takes the place of the sadly deceased head coach of the team. His pleasant demeanor and undeniably funny antics help establish an enjoyable, fast paced tone for the film. All of the tired plot points here get an extra dose of life from Lengyel’s fun persona and warm humility. The whole film has a great personality which goes along way when working with such redundant and unoriginal material. It has a sweetly humble pride over very meager moments of minor victory. The newly formed Marshall team does not win easily. It doesn’t even win all that much really. The joy is in watching the effort and the determination that gets the remaining players back on the field and the locals back in their stadium seats. We Are Marshall is a funny and sensitive genre film that keeps itself feeling fresh with some nice twists on the common formula. It’s not extraordinary, but it’s an entertaining film with some honest to goodness heart at its core.

Grade: B

Children of Men

There’s truly never been a film quite like Alfonso Cuarón’s Children of Men. It’s a visionary feature that portrays a world of tomorrow plagued with tragedy and political upheaval. Yet, the movie has none of the goofy, indulgent slick and shiny clichéd perceptions of what’s to come that can be seen in typical sc-fi fare. It’s a future that’s made technological advances, but still remains inherently human. The basic principals are still the same no matter changes. It’s not a place of teleportation devices and flying cars. It’s a world where people still buy coffee in the morning and drive to work. Cuarón has sustained every ounce of banal life in his vision and made a future that feels tangible, and frighteningly possible.

Cuarón makes the unexpected and brilliant decision to film his sci-fi epic with messy handheld camera work and gritty, realistic costume and set designs. He puts tireless effort into sucking the heroism and grandiosity out of anything that threatens to be conventional or untrue. When Theo (Clive Owen) tries to make a getaway in a stolen car, Cuarón turns the daring escape into a moment that is both comedic and painfully real. The car won’t start and Theo pushes it clumsily along over and over again, losing his shoes in the process. It’s a great thing to do to one’s protagonist. He no longer reeks of bogus efficiency and instead comes off as a sympathetic guy stuck in a tough situation. Cuarón paints Theo as an unlikely but earnest messiah figure, the savior of the world in flip flop sandals. It’s all just so brilliantly pure and simple that I can’t comprehend anyone not falling in love with this film for all of its passion and textured detail.

The main narrative revolves around Theo’s quest to transport Kee, the only pregnant woman in a world that has been infertile for 18 years, to a humanitarian organization working to salvage the human race. The world has stumbled into utter crisis due to its impending demise and England has become one of the few countries remaining with a decent standard of living. Its borders have grown viciously tight and its citizens increasingly antagonistic, but it remains the last surviving civilized society nonetheless.

The story itself is sparse. We’re left with just one objective: get Kee to safety. The rest of film takes shape as a result of the many complications on the journey toward resolution. It’s an insane blend of philosophical angst, harrowing emotions, and outright explosive action sequences. However, everything comes laced with a unifying level of honesty and humility. The movie’s greatest charm is in the way that it defies expectations and occupies a world that feels as complicated and absurd as the one we live in today. Everything going on here comes as a crushing surprise and the way this film sees the year 2027 could rattle just about anyone. There’s still such a hope and such a vivid sense of humanity underscoring all of the devastation, but it remains a difficult sight to behold. It’s nearly impossible to fully describe this movie, but I could not recommend it more. It is honestly a movie experience that you’ll remember not soon forget.

Grade: A+

Dreamgirls

Dreamgirls is quite a confection of operatic dysfunction and dazzling lights, but it still turns out to be a bit of a letdown. Writer/director Bill Condon, the man who brought us the underrated biopics Kinsey and Gods and Monsters, squanders his talent for crafting subtle and outstanding drama here and instead loads up the movie with flamboyant spectacle and wall to wall visual flare. The film looks amazing, but its heart gets buried in glitter and the whole production comes up feeling excessive and insincere.

The general story revolves around a Supremes-esque girl group’s rise to fame and the dirty underhandedness that it takes to get them there. Pop singer Beyoncé Knowles plays Deena Jones, the Diana Ross type lead singer who is thrown into the spotlight due mostly to her beauty and easy acceptance by white audiences. Knowles has appeared in lightweight films in the past, but makes her true cinematic debut here with assurance and dignity. It’s not a performance worthy of the Best Actress trophies everyone seems eager to throw at her, but it does prove that she has talent well beyond Pink Panther remakes. Also reminding us that he has talent is Eddie Murphy, who thankfully plays just one character in the film and not generations of family relatives as he seems determined to do in every one of his lame brained comedies. He stars as a James Brown-esque soul man named Jimmy Early who gives the girls their big break as backup singers and goes on to self destruct in a world where soul music has lost its hold. Early’s downfall comes mostly as a result of the dirty tricks of Curtis Taylor Jr., played by Academy Award winner Jamie Foxx. Though he’s the most proven member of the cast, Foxx gives the most underwhelming performance and mostly just modestly scowls his way through the film.

It’s the least known and least experienced member of the cast, Jennifer Hudson, who makes the biggest impression here as Effie White, a member of the group who gets cast out for being an excessive diva with a voice that’s too soulful and a body that’s too curvy to make it in the mainstream. Hudson gives a delightful performance that shuns the sort of glamour plaguing the rest of the film. Her work has provides a whole hearted, full throated passion that really makes this carefully calculated film come to life with messy and spontaneous excitement. Her show stopping number, “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going,” is precisely the combination of emotional theatrics and staggering musical ferocity that this film would have needed throughout to save it from mediocrity. As it is, that scene alone elevates the film above its flaws.

There’s also such a hypocritical irony about this film which kept me from really enjoying it. It’s the story of how the human soul, as represented by soul music, gets shunned in favor of spineless, easily marketed pop music spectacle. Yet, the film itself adores the glittering lights and fancy dance numbers. It champions Effie’s inspiring voice and character, but it wrongly keeps her story residing just beneath the surface. Her moments are unmistakably the most involving parts of the film, but they’re treated as second tier portions of a narrative that highlights the trials of more polished and dull characters like Deena and Curtis. As in the narrative, Effie, the art of the film, gets lost amidst the slick business that puts Deena, and therefore Beyoncé, front and center. Dreamgirls works well as a whirling, fast paced pop musical, but as a sincere film and piece of art, none of its neon lights and high powered sheen can save it from being lackluster.

Grade: B

Rocky Balboa

Rocky Balboa, the sixth and final installment of the Rocky franchise, has all the bruised, bulky, bone-headed charm that one would expect from a film in this series. Sylvester Stallone returns to close out his iconic underdog story and salvage his most beloved character from the ruins of the much maligned Rocky V. Here Stallone reinvents Rocky as a charming old fogy with a love for nostalgia. He spends his time hanging out at his local Philadelphia eatery and telling old fight stories to customers. When not schmoozing, he’s revisiting his old haunts and reliving the old days or visiting his wife’s grave and mourning his losses. Fresh inspiration comes to him when a computerized fight simulator deems him the winner of an imaginary bout with the current heavyweight champion, Mason “The Line” Dixon (real life fighter Antonio Tarver). As a result, Rocky considers taking on some local fights to help excise the “beast within” and ends up in an actual pay-per-view publicity spectacle with Dixon, his former fantasy opponent.

Even with all the excitement of the grand fight finale, the real core of the film is the inspiration Rocky gives to the underdogs in both his own life and in the world in general. As the main event begins, people who’ve been discounted and pushed around rally behind him and support him against all odds. He is meant as a figure that gives hope to the hopeless and the film capitalizes on this to great effect. Rocky’s victory is not so much about what he does in the ring as it is about how he makes people everywhere truly believe in something. Despite its clichés and uncouth demeanor, there’s no way of escaping the fact that this film really excels at captivating and motivating its audience without going over the top. It’s a celebratory film, but it’s never too sensationalistic. Of all the eager to excite underdog sports films in recent memory, this is definitely one of the most well-rounded ones. Stallone keeps a level head and a steady hand, making for a film that is self-congratulatory but still humble. His passion for the story is undeniable and there’s just no way of getting around the fact that Rocky will always be a much loved character in our culture. He represents the timeless ideal that a good heart and ample endurance is all you need overcome any obstacle in life and who doesn’t want to believe that?

Grade: B+

DVD of the Week: Factotum

Factotum stars Matt Dillon in his greatest role yet as Charles Bukowski’s famed literary alter ego Henry Chinaski, an unemployed louse with ambitions no greater than persistent drunkenness. Chinaski wants to be a writer, but he more often finds himself getting hired and quickly fired from work-a-day dead end jobs. The entire film has a wonderfully subtle, comic touch that transforms simple scenarios into hilarious revelations of Chinaski’s psyche and hidden charm. Even scenes of absolute silence become expressive moments packed with an awkward, dry wit. Nothing here begs for sympathy and affection. It’s not a desperate film in search of awards and aiming to purposefully draw out weepy emotions. Like its lead, it has limited aspirations, but it is so perfect at doing what it intends that it’s hard to find a flaw.

Also new to DVD this week is Brian De Palma’s The Black Dahlia. It's a clever film that closely mimics 1940s noir looks and styles while also adding some striking contemporary touches. Scarlett Johansson could not have a more perfect face for De Palma’s nostalgic lense and the extremely talented Hilary Swank and Aaron Eckhart both get to play around with interesting roles that go against their usual types. Dahlia is vicious campy fun with some real thrills and cool twists. Noir fans and those looking for something a little more exciting this week should be very pleased. You can pick up The Last Kiss on DVD this week as well. It’s a sort of complacent and kind of over glossy dramedy that’s always straddling the line between witty drama and maudlin cliché. It’s not quite pitch perfect, but it’s rare to see such a wise and ambitious relationship drama done for the MTV set. Garden State and “Scrubs” star Zach Braff lends his sad eyes and indie albums to the role of the adulterous lead character with a string of impressive actors including Tom Wilkinson and Blythe Danner rounding out the supporting cast. The Last Kiss may not be perfect, but it still hits many of the right notes and delivers a warm humor that’s lacking in a lot of films. If nothing else, it unleashed the phrase “quarter life crisis” into the pop culture mainstream. In a world where kids grow up faster and adults get mixed up sooner, everyone seems to be pushing the panic button pre-40th birthday. Fortunately, Zach Braff will happily sulk with you.

Happy Holidays

So, with Christmas approaching I'll probably not be updating until the 26th at the earliest, but I have a lot in store for the days to come. I'll be back with reviews of the following films and many more: Dreamgirls, Children Of Men, Rocky Balboa, We Are Marshall, Curse of the Golden Flower, Venus, Notes On A Scandal, Perfume: The Story Of A Murderer, & Pan's Labyrinth. I'll also be putting together a list of my favorite films of 2006 as everything draws to a close. So, please get back here post-Christmas because there will be a lot to read.

I wish everyone who visits a very happy holiday and encourage one and all to settle in with their favorite film for the season. I know I'll be ready and waiting with my copy of Bad Santa come Christmas morning.

The Good Shepherd

Robert De Niro’s latest foray into directing, The Good Shepherd, is an aggressively precise but brilliantly calculated thriller in the vein of The Godfather and The Conversation. Its exactness and excessive detail play to wearying results in the film’s meandering first half, but there is a satisfying conclusion waiting ahead that strings together almost all of the seemingly erroneous plotlines. It would be difficult to really appreciate what you’re seeing the first time around since so much meaning is built only once you’ve reached the film’s end, but there is ultimately such a sense of completion that you’re nearly willing to forgive the difficulties of the opening act. Clearly screenwriter Eric Roth knew what he was doing, but perhaps he overestimated just how interesting his script could be without the insights still to come. You can’t help but feel when watching this film that all of the strenuously plotted events that take place are simply fodder for the show stopping finale.

It’s this final half of the film that brings together all the strands of narrative and lands itself squarely on target. Without over sharing, I’ll simply say that Matt Damon plays Edward Wilson, a privileged student at Yale who goes on to become one of the founding members of the CIA. His wife (Angelina Jolie) and family become victims of his deceptive business and over the course of many years his own callousness bleeds one into the other to horrifying effect. The real pleasure of this film is its darkly fascinating depiction of a dying soul. Wilson’s concern and compassion slowly diminish over time and with wonderful subtlety, Damon and De Niro chronicle the character from a wide-eyed idealist into a wounded antihero looking only to do his job.

The Good Shepherd is an enviable cinematic achievement, but it’s also a difficult film to really settle into and enjoy. However, even its drifting and unclear moments are handled with such meticulousness that it is hard to critique the film for complexity. It means to be complex and it succeeds. I only wish that it was consistently engaging and more attentive to the needs of its audience. Even the most enthusiastic viewer is not likely to be instantly enthralled or touched by this slick, hard hearted film. It takes time and endurance to find its inner values, much like the secretive man at its center.

Grade: A-

The Good German

Steven Soderbergh’s The Good German is admittedly quite an on the nose homage to 1940s noir and other films of that era. The opening scene could quite literally be torn out of Carol Reed’s The Third Man as could several scenes following after it. Regardless of all the borrowing, I still feel that Soderbergh’s keen eye and knack for involving storytelling are on full display here. The intricate narrative takes place in post-war Germany when everyone was concocting vicious plots to escape the fallout of Hitler’s reign. George Clooney plays the clueless American who falls into the schemes of various government manipulators and willingly into the arms of a German femme fatale (Cate Blanchett). The murky details involve the bomb project, a missing man, and a letch of a motor pool driver (Tobey Maguire), but really the film is an exercise in stylistic approximation. Soderbergh’s frames created such a shadowy beauty that it’s hard to resist falling in love with his unconventional choice of style. He also creates fascinatingly textured frames, getting the most meaning possible out of seemingly simple situations. One of my favorite scenes this year is “the parade scene” near the film’s end. It’s such a layered and playful comment on politics at the time that it deserves its own round of enthusiastic applause.

Clooney always makes for a likable screen presence and his chemistry with Soderbergh is quite obvious. They’ve made many films together and have developed what feels like an effortless actor-director relationship. Clooney also has great on-screen chemistry with Cate Blanchett who gives the most mannered performance of the film. Though what she’s doing has all the makings of a hammy caricature, she gives such specificity and such a feeling of life to the role that you believe her every step of the way.

Anyone wanting to rant about how people should be seeing films of the 1940s instead of a film that looks like a film from the 1940s can feel free to do so. However, I think there’s something more to this film than mimicry. It feels stale for only moments before taking on its own life as an exciting and complex political thriller. The film truly has fresh ideas and visual innovations of its own in addition to capturing a classic look and feel. There are so many contemporary thrillers that lift multiple ideas from 1940s noir. At least this one has the nerve to be upfront about its inspirations.

Grade: A

Letters from Iwo Jima

Letters from Iwo Jima is the fourth consecutive cinema masterpiece from veteran director Clint Eastwood and his second tour de force film of the year. By looking at the events of Iwo Jima from the Japanese perspective rather than the American side he depicted in the also brilliant Flags of Our Fathers, Eastwood crafts a companion film that wildly exceeds its predecessor.

Flags dealt with the complexities of heroism in the eyes of the American cultural and championed humanity over idealized infamy. Letters similarly dissects cultural perceptions by tackling the intricacies of the Japanese notion of honor with respect to the code of dignity that required soldiers who had failed in combat to give their own lives. It's not a safe or flowery depiction of this Japanese tradition either. In one of the most startling and unforgettable scenes in any movie this year, we witness first hand what it is like to see your friends and allies kill themselves violently one by one and be called upon to do the same.

Letters bleeds to its core, providing a darker and more evocative take on the notorious events of that battle. It juggles leaner, faster, and more vivid action sequences with a more harrowing dramatic narrative and even more thematic complexities. Eastwood never settles himself neatly into a clear cut corner. In both Flags and Letters, every scene comes filled with ambiguities. Nothing is simplified here and it is this painful true-to-life murky sense of morality that makes these films so wonderful. Eastwood has literally salvaged the war epic as a genre by stripping away the conventional glamorized one-sided format and introducing such an unsettling sense of messiness and imperfection. Simply by choosing to tell both sides of the story, he is reminding the viewer that the enemies in Flags are not monsters just as their American enemies in Letters are not monsters. He draws lines between the cultures and creates scenes of eerie tension by flashing back to the past lives of these characters, reminding us that they too are hard working family men. In one remarkably unsettling scene we see the General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, (Ken Watanabe) sharing a meal with the American military during a pre-war visit to the country. “So,” says a general’s wife, “If you went to war with America would you shoot my husband?” This scene embodies the sentiment of the film: people are people and they can share meals and bridge cultures, but when in war they define each other as soulless beasts. Why can they not also extend humanity then? Why does life lose its meaning at these times?

Watanabe outdoes his Oscar nominated breakthrough role in The Last Samurai here with a wonderfully restrained performance as the stern but affable leader of the Japanese forces. He’s quite nearly exceeded by relative unknown Kazunari Ninomiya as Saigo, a sensitive soul who wants to live and return home to his family despite what the Japanese code of honor may say.

More than anything, Eastwood has used these Iwo Jima films as a template to celebrate and explore humanity in all of its splendor and all of its grief. People are complicated and flawed and these films go to great lengths to depict these flaws without disrespecting the people. Eastwood shows the utmost respect to the soldiers, but seems cautious of the demands put upon them by their respective nations. He stresses that amidst the publicity and the war maneuvers, people forget all too often that they are dealing with real human beings. So often war films feel torn from pages of history books, but this one is based quite literally and the thoughts and words of the soldiers. It stems from their letters and their feelings. It escapes the filter of society’s watchful eye and tells with honesty and purity what these people really went through with no agenda in sight.

Grade: A+

3 Needles

3 Needles is a wonderfully sensitive and unexpectedly funny world drama from writer/director Thom Fitzgerald. The film spans three continents and crosses into various different cultures in order to portray the world wide devastation of AIDS in painful yet well measured detail. There is a much more preachy, ugly, and unsympathetic film that could have been made of this material, but Fitzgerald handles this with such a deft hand that it never really over sulks or becomes unbearable. He has an appreciable awareness that his subject is ripe with possibilities for melodrama and maudlin theatrics and works overtime to create a sort of charming wit and deliberate pacing that keep the humanity of the story alive. He even goes as far as to keep the terms “AIDS” and “HIV” entirely out of the script, choosing only to refer to “the virus” and what it has done. Not only does this spare us from redundancies, but it also gives universality to the plot. He is really making a film about all world crises and the way that we fail to come together in defense of ourselves as human beings.

The titular needles come from three separate stories about the AIDS epidemic in various societies. The first features Lucy Liu as a black market blood distributor in China. Shawn Ashmore stars as an infected Canadian porn star in the second. For the third and final chapter, Olympia Dukakis, Chloë Sevigny, and Sandra Oh play missionary nuns in Africa. Each story comes ripe with nuances and complexities that salvage this from being an obvious and unwelcome sourpuss of a film. Despite all the nastiness within the stories, the film still photographs people with warm and forgiving eyes. No one is really cast as a villain here. Everything is done in the pursuit of survival and to survive is quite a difficult thing indeed. The only problem is that in pursuing their own needs, everyone is unintentionally doing damage to the lives of others. That, of course, is the ultimate question of the film. Why can’t we ever seem to work together?

Grade: A-

The Painted Veil

The Painted Veil is a lushly photographed film with a prickly narrative about adultery, cholera, and other unpleasant things. Edward Norton stars as Walter Fane, a doctor who convinces the desperately unhappy Kitty (Naomi Watts) to marry him quickly and travel with him to his lab in China. The two have a comedically tense marriage with general graciousness but hardly a spark of chemistry between them. Bored by her status as a stay at home wife and regretting her decision to marry the incompatible Dr. Fane, Kitty embarks on an affair with another local Englishman, Charlie Townsend (Liev Schreiber). When Walter learns of the affair he threatens to make a scandal of her infidelity (this is, of course, the 1920s) and bargains with her to keep things quiet if she’ll journey with him into the heart of a cholera epidemic in a small faraway town.

The narrative is a fascinating one and everything about the film is perfectly done, but none of it really clicks into place in the way that you’d hope. Norton and Watts make great comedic sparring partners and later in the film get to utilize their dramatic skills wonderfully, but I’m not sure that I ever really believed their performances. They never quite slipped perfectly into their roles and often gave a sense of falseness to it all. Director John Curran does a nice job here shaping the rhythms of the spouses’ arguments and photographing lovely Chinese scenery, but he too seems a little heavy handed and lacking in earnestness. It’s a film that is much prettier to look at than it is to endure. In fact, it’s so austere and so elegant that it sometimes forgets to breathe. Though the dysfunction in the characters’ lives is ample, it does not seem in any way vivid or relatable. The Painted Veil is not so much a harrowing movie experience as it is a rigorous one, the kind that leaves you exhausted but unmoved. It’s definitely worth a look, but it’s not something you need to run out and see immediately, especially during such a busy movie season filled with much better film possibilities.

Grade: B-

DVD of the Week: Little Miss Sunshine

How anyone could not adore this sweetly foolish comedy masterpiece is beyond me. It’s one of the best written, acted, and directed films of the year. More importantly, it’s not a dense skulking meditation on human nature. It’s not the traditional “four star” Oscar contender film. However, it is just as good at being a wild and funny slapstick adventure as any more somber film is at its high art drama. Every now and then a comedy comes along with the sort of lively unstoppable charisma that moves us all. This is one of those movies.

Also new to DVD is Richard Linklater’s trippy, innovative and weirdly animated A Scanner Darkly. The story, based on the work of Phillip K. Dick, follows a futuristic drug inspector getting lost in addiction and losing himself within the guise of various identities. It’s dark and unpleasant, but it’s something very much worth seeing.

Home of the Brave

Home of the Brave is probably one of the most poorly executed films of the year. On paper and on the release calendar, Home seemed like a would be contender. It had a serious, urgent subject matter (the war in Iraq) and a mid-December release date that put it up against the very best of the year’s potential Oscar nominees. However, despite all of the apparent enthusiasm from the studio, this is really just a badly handled and annoyingly melodramatic lecture about war and its aftermath. The story is a creaky pile of clichés about soldiers who return from war wounded and haunted and go on to become alcoholics who drive drunk and go on rampages. None of this is helped by the awkward direction of Irwin Winkler who orchestrates the movie with a very heavy hand that makes even the film’s more resonant scenes feel clunky and uncomfortable. Mr. Winkler tries too hard to lay in his message with brutal but ineffective action scenes that soullessly depict the deaths of many soldiers without making us really feel for them in the way that we should. When you first see the movie it clearly exudes the qualities of a slick action pic, but this is material that needs to be treated with a much more somber tone. It takes artistry to find the depth in violence, and this is not an artful film. It’s a picture absent of naturalism and stylized in all the wrong ways.

In perhaps one of the most wrongly comedic deaths in a long while, Winkler has teen dream Chad Michael Murray gunned down from behind in an unbelievably exaggerated slow motion shot. It embodies very much what he is doing wrong here. He is stretching the material. He tries to make it so clear and so obvious that it loses realism and intensity. Honestly, though, who wouldn’t chuckle at Chad Michael Murray being shot in slow motion? You know you would. Besides, that doesn’t even begin to cover all of the badness here. There are even more laughs to be had over soap star Brian Presley’s heinously over the top grieving or the sheer bogusness of wannabe actor 50 Cent grunting “I’ll cover you” just seconds prior to all of this. Seriously, has a slow motion death ever been effective? Seriously?

This leads sort of into the next problem here. Winkler assembled a pretty mediocre cast who cannot truly carry the weight of the story. Nearly all of them try so hard to emote that you can physically see them straining their eyes to form tears. Samuel L. Jackson carries himself well enough and Jessica Biel is slowly improving over time, but I don’t think either of them really suited the material well enough to make it work. It helps that they had the most effective stories of the film and got to play the better moments here, but they still outclass their costars by a mile.

It really is gutsy to make a film about the events and the effects of a current war, especially one that is the cause of so much debate and controversy. That being said, if you’re going to tackle an issue that is this important and socially relevant, then you really need to make something special out of it. It has to be poignant and articulate filmmaking that brings insight to all that is going on. To just casually film devastation and wait for the tears that follow is a useless and tedious exercise in unnecessary moviemaking. I believe that everyone at work here, including Winkler and his cast, mean well and are trying their best, but none of them deliver enough to really make me feel like this film has any reason to exist.

Grade: D

News: Click Star

A new movie download service has opened up online: Click Star . It's yet another way to legally download movies in place of a traditional DVD purchase or rental. It's also part of the many new experiments in distribution being used to get indie movies and limited release films to a broader audience. 10 Items Or Less, a joyous little independent venture from writer/director Brad Silberling and producer/star Morgan Freeman is the first new release being tested on the site. For those who cannot make it to a theater showing the film or simply prefer to see it in the comfort of your own home, you can now buy or rent this recent release at ClickStar. This is a novelty since the film has only been in theaters for 2 weeks so far and won't come to DVD for at least a few months. Rentals last 72 hours and purchases provide permenant files. The price is slightly more than a movie ticket for a rental and about the average of a high priced DVD for a purchase. I'm not sure where I stand on the format since I'm a tremendous supporter of the dying theatrical viewership of films. In the case of something with a theatrical release this limited, though, I'm just glad more people will get to see the film.

The Pursuit of Happyness

The Pursuit of Happyness is everything you expect it to be: a syrupy sticky and sometimes silly family drama that shamelessly showcases the power of perseverance above all things. That being said, it’s hard to criticize something for being exactly what it claims. I doubt anyone with a cynic’s heart could endure the full runtime of this ultra saccharine movie, but I also doubt they would ever consider seeing it in the first place.

My main complaints are towards its by the numbers structure and complacent writing. There’s not a second of surprise here and not even the most desperately sad moments really sting. Everything that goes wrong just seems like a means of postponing the happy ending to come. What makes this otherwise mediocre film worthwhile is an impressive performance by Will Smith. He brings both resilience and charm to the role of a father struggling to support his young son. He also brings his actual dynamic with his son Jaden to the film as well. This is not just a case of Hollywood nepotism, but a real opportunity to capture an authentic connection between father and son on the big screen. Credit also goes to Italian director Gabriele Muccino who does great work here and often exceeds the quality of the material. He shoots a wonderfully vivid and gritty indie style film and then sees his vision dimmed by Smith’s all too hokey voice over and corny lines that are best left forgotten. It would have been a much better film if Muccino had loosened up the heavy handed script structure and let us enjoy his much more appropriately subdued visual style instead.

I’m not sure how much I would recommend this film on a general level. It’s mildly enjoyable and generally pleasant, but its not really compelling or exciting cinema. Though, for those in pursuit of a meager dose of happiness and some sugary low stakes drama, this will certainly do the trick. It’s good at what it is, but it’s not much at all.

Grade: B

Awards Coverage: Golden Globes Nominations

So, this morning the nominations for this year's Golden Globes were announced and they're not quite the debacle I've come to expect from this particularly bad tasting award show. In order to demonstrate my concern, I will remind everyone that last year's over the top schlock musical The Producers which rightly received limited awards contention received 5 nominations at the Globes including Best Picture! These people usually don't get it right, but they did get a lot right this time around. Good work.

BEST MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA

• Babel
• Bobby
• The Departed
• Little Children
• The Queen

I can't really attack anything here. This is a respectable list of nominees and at least 3 of the 5 films on it will probably fall into my Top 10 for 06. The remaining two (The Departed, The Queen) are both very strong films as well, but I still haven't quite bought into the buzz around them. I think they're good, but not quite the best of the year. Certainly, their inclusion here still makes for a satisfying, well rounded category.

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA

• Penélope Cruz - Volver
• Judi Dench - Notes On A Scandal
• Maggie Gyllenhaal - Sherrybaby
• Helen Mirren - The Queen
• Kate Winslet - Little Children

This is another flawless category. One problem with the Golden Globes is that they come so early in the year and therefore people have not seen some of the films prior to the nominations. I'll just have to take their word that Judi Dench is brilliant in Notes On A Scandal. Although, I think that's probably a safe bet anyway. I'm especially happy to see Magggie here since her performance has been losing buzz and really does deserve consideration. I also really enjoy seeing Kate Winslet who has been so good in so many films and also Cruz who has been so bad in so many, but really shined in her stellar performance this year.

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE – DRAMA

• Leonardo DiCaprio - Blood Diamond
• Leonardo DiCaprio - The Departed
• Will Smith - The Pursuit of Happyness
• Peter O’ Toole - Venus
• Forest Whitaker - The Last King of Scotland

Flaws? Flaws indeed. Did we really need to see DiCapio twice? I would easily nominate him for his convincing work in The Departed, but not so much for his ho hum accent and tough guy swagger in Blood Diamond. Why not offer a nomination to the also impressive Matt Damon if the Globes are so keen on tossing awards at The Departed this year? Their biggest shame is shutting out indie dream Ryan Gosling for Half Nelson. Whitaker may be this year's golden boy, but at least he deserves it. There are some names there that maybe aren't worth the price of admission. Plus, no one has seen that Peter O'Toole performance that's supposed to be his best yet.

BEST MOTION PICTURE – COMEDY OR MUSICAL

• Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
• The Devil Wears Prada
• Dreamgirls
• Little Miss Sunshine
• Thank You For Smoking

I'm psyched about Sunshine and Smoking. But Prada? It's silly fun, but is it award worthy silly fun? I'm not sure. However, I am sure that it was a great move to nominate Borat despite its prickly edges and lack of award show prestige and sophistication.

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A MOTION PICTURE – COMEDY OR MUSICAL

• Annette Bening - Running with Scissors
• Toni Collette - Little Miss Sunshine
• Beyoncé Knowles - Dreamgirls
• Meryl Streep - The Devil Wears Prada
• Renee Zellweger - Miss Potter

There's not too much that's exciting about this category. Collette is a nice surprise and a deserving actress. No one has seen Miss Potter yet, but I have a sneaking suspicion that Zellweger's name just got tossed in there for the the hell of it. Why do people like her so much? I'm not sure if Catherine O'Hara submitted under this category or as a Best Supporting Actress contender, but either way, she was robbed.

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A MOTION PICTURE – COMEDY OR MUSICAL

• Sacha Baron Cohen - Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
• Johnny Depp - Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man't Chest
• Aaron Eckhart - Thank You For Smoking
• Chiwetel Ejiofor - Kinky Boots
• Will Ferrell - Stranger Than Fiction

Nominating Johnny Depp for kinky pirate role is kind of an old novelty by now, but nominating Sacha Baron Cohen is a much welcome new novelty. I also love the nomination for the often underrated Eckhart who gets my vote for the best of these five. Plus, I at least understand the nomination of Ferrell for his first real role as an actor, but I enjoyed the work of Maggie Gyllenhaal and Emma Thompson much more in that film and wish they'd been acknowledged in their respective categories.

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A MOTION PICTURE

• Adriana Barraza - Babel
• Cate Blanchett - Notes On A Scandal
• Emily Blunt - The Devil Wears Prada
• Jennifer Hudson - Dreamgirls
• Rinko Kikuchi - Babel

I'm extremely happy to see Barraza and Kikuchi nominated for their amazing work in Babel. The state of Hudson and Blanchett is unclear to me since those films have not yet been released. Blunt is a fun little surprise nomination, but there are more deserving performances out there. I have an understanding that my film radar differs from that of a major award show, but I think anyone who has seen Emily Watson in The Proposition would agree with me that she deserves consideration. Unfortunately, almost no one has.

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE IN A MOTION PICTURE

• Ben Affleck - Hollywoodland
• Eddie Murphy - Dreamgirls
• Jack Nicholson - The Departed
• Brad Pitt - Babel
• Mark Wahlberg - The Departed

This category seems a little bit full of people making comebacks and getting their careers back on track. I don't particularly dislike any one nomination, but they're not the most interesting choices. Okay, maybe I do dislike just one: Wahlberg. He's not bad in the movie. I just don't think it's good enough to be nominated. Plus, it does kind of embody the sweepiness of The Departed's future awards trajectory. More importantly, none of the three deserving supporting actors from Little Miss Sunshine got nominated. Steve Carell, Alan Arkin, and Paul Dano all deserve recognition for their work.

BEST DIRECTOR – MOTION PICTURE

• Clint Eastwood - Flags Of Our Fathers
• Clint Eastwood - Letters From Iwo Jima
• Stephen Frears - The Queen
• Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu - Babel
• Martin Scorsese - The Departed

It's weird to see Eastwood nominated twice without a Best Picture nomination. I haven't seen Letters yet, but I would have ranked Flags above both The Departed and The Queen. I'm also really happy about Iñárritu getting nominated. He's gone unrecognized for far too long already.

BEST SCREENPLAY – MOTION PICTURE

• Guillermo Arriaga - Babel
• Todd Field & Tom Perrotta - Little Children
• Patrick Marber -Notes On A Scandal
• William Monahan - The Departed
• Peter Morgan - The Queen

Novelist Todd Field and playwright Patrick Marber make their mark as screenwriters with nominations in this category. It's a fine list of complex scripts from elaborate and mostly exciting films.

For a complete list of nominees go here: ComingSoon.net - Golden Globe Awards

News: Dreamgirls Admission Costs

Dreamgirls, the much hyped musical adaptation of the Broadway show of the same name, is playing in exclusive cities, at exclusive theaters, and only during very exclusive showtimes. Here in New York, it'll be opening at the Ziegfeld on Friday with nightly showings at 8:00 and an occasional 2:00 matinee. The price of admission? $25 per ticket. I'm guessing the excuse is that the movie mirrors the experience of a much costlier stage production. However, when this plan was figured out, the film's distributor was probably betting on it being a surefire Best Picture nominee and a huge smash. In recent weeks there has already been a backlash against the film and its latest reviews are strong but not exactly the stuff of dreams. It's being called a great spectacle, but not neccesarily a great film. Its exclusion from every major top 10 list so far this awards season further underscores this notion. I'm not sure when I'll be seeing the movie, but I can't help but think this release strategy will further negative press for the film and add to animosity against it. It seems like a fairly condescending gesture of superiority to demand a higher entrance fee than the rest of the winter's other major releases. For those of us with thinner wallets and those outside of the NYC and LA areas, the film opens wide on Christmas day with a reguar price for admission.

DVD of the Week: World Trade Center

My DVD pick for this week is World Trade Center, Oliver Stone’s emotional and uplifting portrayal of two Port Authority police officers’ harrowing experiences on September 11th. The film was wrongly construed as controversial (largely because of the man at its helm), but it is truly a straightforward telling of Will Jimeno and John McLoughlin’s story. Stone is not exploiting a tragedy, but rather articulating a very specific story with the consent and detailed accounts of the real life men upon which he bases the film. These men are played with understated dignity by Michael Peña and Nicolas Cage both of whom are wonderful here. Cage is especially enjoyable due to his recent lack of good taste (The Wicker Man? Ghost Rider?). Also doing spectacular work here are Maria Bello and Maggie Gyllenhaal, two fabulous actresses who triumph when provided with the daunting tasking of portraying the anxious and grieving wives of two men who might never come home.

For those of you with a taste for featherweight cinema (which World Trade Center is most certainly not), this week also marks the release of one of the most brisk and efficient lightweight films of the year: The Devil Wears Prada. Its skill is in its direct, uncomplicated, and unpretentious demeanor. Its creators are completely aware that they are making something meant solely to be an enjoyable, humorous romp and rightly craft a fast paced and utterly silly film. Meryl Streep is bound to get yet another Oscar nomination for her work here as the cold and conniving Anna Wintour-esque editor of a fashion magazine and young actresses Anne Hathaway and Emily Blunt shine with just as much luster in less demanding roles. If you need to see something with no depth of any kind, then this is about as well as you could possibly do this weekend.

Awards Coverage: L.A. Critics Association

Clint Eastwood's Letters From Iwo Jima received its second notable honor this week when it was named best film of 06 by the Los Angeles Critics Association. It was previously selected by The National Board of Review to receive a similar honor during its awards ceremony. Needless to say, Letters continues its run toward becoming the most sudden of Oscar front runners while early buzz favorites like the heavily hyped Dreamgirls see their prospects dim after being passed over completely by yet another major organization. These groups are known to have very different opinions, though, and Oscar picks can often come out of nowhere. Las year's Best Picture winner, Crash, was minimally recognized elsewhere before winning the top film award of the year.

The Architect

I generally love low key, low budget, indie cinema, but despite all of its unglamorous charms, The Architect is just too schmaltzy and sour to really be worthwhile. The film stars Anthony LaPaglia as a wealthy architect whose family is on the brink of imploding and Viola Davis as a woman fighting to demolish what she deems as functionally corrupt buildings in Eden Courts, her public housing project home. She pursues the building’s architect (the aforementioned LaPaglia character) and the two engage in some really well done moments of culture clashing. When she confronts him about how the buildings lend themselves to gang intimidation and help to permit crime in her neighborhood, he simply launches into a lecture about the buildings’ origins in French architecture and concludes that he cannot help her because they are “structurally sound.” Unfortunately, even with its brief 81 minute runtime this film still feels overly padded with other storylines such as the architect’s crumbling marriage and his children’s unrelated sexual explorations. Its tangents are predictable and unnecessary, killing any and all momentum established in the film’s more solid scenes. The movie is almost worth a quick look for the quality material here, but I cannot recommend that anyone sit through this film to the ridiculous and overdramatic end.

Grade: C+

News: Kelly Wraps Southland Tales

If you're anything like me, then you can't get enough of the genre bending teen angst opus Donnie Darko. That also means that you've been waiting anxiously for director Richard Kelly's long delayed follow up film, Southland Tales, the sprawling sci-fi debacle that was reportedly booed at Cannes and received a thunderstorm of bad publicity. At one heartbreaking moment in time there were reports that it might not be released in America at all and then there were the even more heartbreaking reports that it would be released in a brutalized 90 minute non-director approved format. Alas, Kelly has editted the film, which at Cannes played for approximately 2 hour and 45 minutes. Kelly at first seemed panicked about having to cut his work and reportedly resisted demands from distributor Sony Pictures to shorten the film and "clarify" its plot. However, Kelly recently said that he has happily compromised with the studio and put together the final theatrical cut, which will run 2 hours and 17 minutes and provide some structure to the "rubix cube" plot of the film. This is good enough news for me. I'll take Kelly's word that he's proud of the theatrical version and does not see it as an inferior edit in any way. In truly warped Kelly tradition, the film tells the story of an amnesiac action star (The Rock) being lead by a psychic porn star (Sarah Michelle Gellar) around Southern California in an alternate 2008 in which Texas has been bombed and the American government has amped up securtiy to a scarily high level. The exact details are fuzzy to me even having read almost all the materials leading up to the film so far. It's safe to say that Kelly is once again exploring a world on the verge of the apocalypse and he's using the vain L.A. movie scene to do so. Anyone interested can pick up the prequel graphic novels (Part I and Part II are in stores now and Part III will be released shortly). Kelly is currently prepping his third film, The Box, and is hoping to begin filming in March 2007. It's based upon the short story by Richard Matheson and is thought to be a step toward a more commercial project.

Apocalypto

With Apocalypto, Mel Gibson has created a highly unconventional adventure film that supersedes most other films of the genre on the basis of originality alone. Gibson sets the mysterious events of the film near the end of the Mayan civilization and visually keeps his film at peace with its period décor. He recreates authentic looking villages and clothing and even cast various unknowns in all the major roles. From the very first shot of the film there is a sense that we are being transported to another time and place. The illusion is quite affective.

What’s lacking in Apocalypto is the storytelling done within the engaging world that Gibson has made. Plot seems secondary to bloodlust here as Gibson paints the downfall of Mayan society as a bloodbath that goes beyond realism and into something ugly and atrocious. The sheer amount of time spent filming fields full of mutilated corpses says something strong about Gibson’s psyche. He’s not making a justifiably violent film. He’s filming a slaughter. The scene in which Jaguar Paw (Rudy Youngblood) notices his village is coming under attack begins with a creepy amount of suspense, grows into a horrifyingly visceral moment of utter violence, and then keeps going and going and going. We see so much screaming and bleeding that it actually becomes dull. I was reminded frequently while watching Apocalypto of a quote from the fabulous Showtime series “Weeds” in which Jenji Kohan writes this regarding Gibson’s brutal The Passion of the Christ: “Religion my ass, it’s a straight up snuff film!” While I also felt that The Passion was grisly, it had an objective and a sense of sobriety that’s lacking here. In The Passion violence took on a dark and mournful tone. By comparison, Apocalypto seems like some sort of primeval slasher movie.

Conversely, there is some wonderful stuff done with these characters and their relationships in the first half of the film. Though we are forced to watch them be tortured over and over again as their captors lead them toward an unknown destination, the endurance of their spirits on this trip is probably the only bit of story that resonates with actual depth. There’s also a brilliant sense of association with these characters forged by the shape of the film’s script. It makes us as clueless as the captives with regard to where they are being taken. We know little of this society and their fates could be as gruesome as the mind could foresee (and maybe much worse). However, by the time we’ve reached the second half of the film, there is almost no story left to tell. Jaguar Paw is being hunted by various people with knives as he attempts to make the journey home to his wife and child (he hides them away during the earlier invasion to keep them safe). This entire portion is mostly filled with frenzied handheld shots of people running through trees while Jaguar Paw and his pursuers play cat and mouse games with one another. It’s a very tedious and very long section of the film that stretches much too far and surpasses even surrealistic levels of logic. At one point, a character is hiding from murderers while giving birth and drowning simultaneously.

Gibson is constantly playing with all kinds of themes and ideas, but never really narrows in enough to let us know what he’s aiming for with this movie. He just massacres people before our eyes and says nothing more about it. I was often reminded of The Proposition while watching this movie. That was an even more aggressively cruel film, but it examined with brilliantly unflinching eyes the cost of justice and the dangers of unquestioned morality. Brutal deaths were tragedies that spoke greatly of the flaws of mankind. In Apocalypto, brutal deaths aren’t fun either, but there’s no real sense that any of this serves a purpose beyond popcorn spectacle.

I clearly have some venomous feelings toward this film, but it is undeniably better than most action adventures of our day. If you love bloodthirsty evisceration films or similarly minded films of plotless brutality, Apocalypto will seem like a dream come true. For those of us with less of a taste for blood, the film still works in many ways. There’s the aforementioned sense of connection to these characters as well as a really exciting visual style that elevates the material well above the rest of the pointless action romps of the year. My anger toward it comes from a disappointment that it is not something even better than what it is (an above average thriller). There are small moments of actual meaning and just the faintest hint of a poetic touch here and there, but none of it gets used to the best of its potential. I did enjoy this movie, but it’s simply too torturous and too pointless to receive a more enthusiastic recommendation.

Grade: B

Blood Diamond

Edward Zwick has made a career out of directing socially conscious action adventures. His latest, Blood Diamond, takes place in Sierra Leone during 1999 when conflict diamonds made up a reported 15% of all diamonds in trade (that number has since decreased due to legislation described in the film). Zwick’s strategy here is to soften the blow of his moral outrage with high octane explosiveness. Those looking for a social message will see through the façade and into Zwick’s bleeding heart. However, it seems to me that it would also be quite easy to watch Blood Diamond and walk away with no greater feeling than one would have in a less politically oriented action film. I’m guessing Zwick’s hope is that at least some of his agenda will seep into the minds of these less inspective viewers and create a mass awareness that could not be accomplished with a little seen art house film on the subject.

Leonard DiCaprio is mostly good here as Daniel Archer, a drug smuggler with a tendency to lose his temper and a dark past that has left him morally bankrupt. Archer sees a major financial opportunity when meet Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou), a man forced to work the diamond mines who discovers a large and rare diamond. The scheming Archer then goes on to convince Vandy into a partnership and the two proceed to go after the diamond (which Vandy hid from his murderous rebel overseers) with the help of a well connected journalist named Maddy Bowen (Jennifer Connelly).

The greatest strength of the film is not so much its political message (which is quite blunt and clear throughout), but the way it crafts complex characters and murky situations that mirror those of real lives in the real world. There’s a triangle manipulation set up between the three characters that’s delicate and vicious all at once. They are all using each other, but unexpectedly genuine bonds form between the them that threaten their ability to execute planned betrayals. More importantly, the film examines closely the motives of each of these three people. It would have been easy to portray Vandy as the sole victim here and turn Archer and Bowen into one dimensional exploitatious profiteers. Instead Zwick gets to the heart of their motives and ensures that they have solid reasons for their actions. It really is a study in the gray areas of morality and the ways in which a persistently violent situation can tear into people’s sense of humanity.

The film’s action sequences are distractingly common, but Zwick uses them to simultaneously thrill his audience and portray the political chaos of the nation at this time. However, during many of its chase sequences and gunfights, the film just seems to dip too far into the pool of action movie clichés. Regardless, Zwick has molded something bold and original here. It can be tedious in its length and exhausting in its excessive need for spectacle, but for the most part it is an enjoyable and fascinating look into a horrific time in our recent history.

Grade: B+

Awards Coverage: The National Board Of Review

The National Board of Review's annual award ceremony is usually considered the first major awards show of the season and the initial indicator of major Oscar trends to come. The winner for best feature was a complete surprise: Clint Eastwood's widely unseen Letter from Iwo Jima, the Japanese set companion piece to his mildly received American war epic Flags Of Our Fathers (which I enjoyed and happily gave an A grade in an earlier review). The shock is not in relation to the quality of Letters, which as I've said has yet to be seen by most people, but in its unexpected prominence in such a short matter of time. Universal/Dreamworks had been placing emphasis on Fathers in a major Oscar campaign, but fearing that the weak box office performance would hinder the film's chances, decided to move the release of its less anticipated follow up from February 2007 to December 20th, 2006. This, of course, put it in the running for this year's awards race (very late in the game, I might add) and also pits it directly against Fathers in all categories. It has not been previously mentioned in many conversations about awards season but now jumps to the shortlist of potential Best Picture nominees. For a full list of winners go to National Board of Review of Motion Pictures :: Awards. Below is the Board's surprising list of the "Top 10 Films of 2006" in alphabetical order.

Babel

Blood Diamond

The Departed

The Devil Wears Prada

Flags Of Our Fathers

The History Boys

Letters From Iwo Jima

Little Miss Sunshine

Notes On A Scandal

The Painted Veil