DVD of the Week: Free Zone

My DVD pick for this week is pretty much unheard of, but well worth your time. It skews a bit artsy (ok, a lot), so mainstream movie lovers need not apply. Natalie Portman is the famous face that secured Free Zone it's limited theatrical release more than a year ago and the movie opens with a painful, hauntingly tragic shot of Ms. Portman weeping hysterically for a full, uninterrupted 7 minute take. Here she plays a broken hearted American named Rebecca who has just split from her boyfriend and now finds herself idle in his home nation of Israel. She gets in a cab and tells the driver, Hanna (scene stealer and Cannes Best Actress trophy winner Hana Lazlo), to just drive as far away as possible with no real destination in mind. The two women bond on their journey, and become involved in a number of subplots that pertain particularly to the conflict in Palestine as Hana has business to attend to in the "free zone" of Jordan. While writer/director Amos Gitai is clearly using the film to personify the Israel/Palestine issue through the characters of Hana and eventual business associate, Leila (Hiam Abbass), a Palestinian, all the talk of crossing borders and struggling for liberation plays more keenly as a metaphor for Rebecca's own desperation to exert an identity and escape the "in between" feeling of her change from dedicated significant other to single woman. It's about the discovery of personal identity and the defining of national borders and the many obstacles standing in the way of both these things.

Trailers: Becoming Jane

Anne Hathaway reportedly passed up the chance to star in Judd Apatow's highly anticipated summer comedy Knocked Up in order to take on this Jane Austen biopic. Early reviews for the film have been decidedly favorable albeit with conservative amounts of enthusiasm (do these austere biopics ever really elicit any sort passion from their viewers?). Only time will tell if it was worth ditching an outrageous American comedy in favor of a more serene British drama. It's obvious, though, that this project better serves Hathaway's self confessed desire to be seen as a more serious actress and could even allow her to get her hands on the Academy Award nomination that alluded her for her breakout work in Ange Lee's Brokeback Mountain. James McAvoy and Maggie Smith also star in the film, which focuses on the notoriously unsuccessful love life of the woman responsible for some of literature's most famous romances. The film gets its American release beginning August 3rd.

Trailer:

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809426640/video/2828284/standardformat

Once

Once is a thing of beauty. In what’s truly one of the more brilliant ideas in recent cinema history, writer/director John Carney has revitalized the movie musical and restructured it to suit the current indie rock generation. Rather than delivering a stagy, elaborate production, he has stripped the genre of all its cliché and its formula. Shot on location with primarily handheld camerawork, this is as low key authentic as it gets. The music emerges organically from scene to scene with most of the original audio preserved and very little of the traditional dubbing that goes on in bigger budgeted, heavily choreographed musical productions. It takes the fly on the wall indie flick and adds a new, unbelievably captivating musical twist.

Irish rock Glenn Hansard of the band The Frames stars as an unnamed street performer who spends his days fixing vacuums and his nights playing lonely acoustic love songs on the streets of Dublin hoping against hope for some generous donations. One night he meets a captivating woman (Marketa Irglova, also unnamed in the film) who admires his music. She’s working the streets as well, selling flowers and whatever else she can affordably peddle. As it turns out, she too is a musician, and together they start to write songs and perform for one another. Their relationship is constantly straddling the line between friendship and romance with each person bringing their own baggage in to complicate the situation. Thankfully, baggage here is not just boring exposition. You can discover everything you need to know about the characters through the content of their songs. In one truly lovely scene, the woman asks him what went wrong with his old girlfriend and he begins to improvise a song on his guitar as if the truth were impossible to speak but exhilarating to play. So much here is sung instead of spoken. It’s precisely what a musical should be. The deepest emotions and darkest revelations of the narrative all come through songs. There’s a true awareness of the way in which these two artists hide within their material and a very strong argument made for their relationship based on the simple fact that they understand the power of each other’s music. Their musical collaboration begets emotional entanglement and soon the story and the music become so deeply intertwined that we’re left experiencing both as one in the same.

There’s not much plot here, but there doesn’t need to be. It’s a film closest to meandering dialogue love stories like Before Sunrise and its sequel, Before Sunset. The satisfying reversal being that rather than relying on carefully crafted dialogue to further the emotional bond between the two leads, we get an extremely beautiful collection of songs that express the characters’ emotions as eloquently, or maybe more so, than film’s most brilliantly gifted screenwriter ever could. The relationship formed here and the songs it produces feel as true and earnest as on any screen coupling. This is a magnificent film.

Grade: A

Bug

Bug is the latest film to suffer the wrath of dishonest marketing. Though it’s been packaged and served up as a horror film from the director of The Exorcist, it’s more accurately a claustrophobic and very creepy drama based on a stage play by Tracy Letts. It contains elements as horrific as those in director William Friedkin’s classic, The Exorcist, but terror is not the blueprint here, it’s merely a consequence of the desperation and deep loneliness embodied by the film’s paranoid, psychologically damaged leads. Michael Shannon stars as Peter Evans, a man who starts out looking like a harmless loner and gradually reveals a darker penchant for conspiracy that will ultimately send him over the edge. By chance he finds himself sharing a hotel room with Agnes White, (Ashley Judd) a woman trying to escape an abusive marriage and cope with the loss of her young son. Peter’s paranoia is the one thing in her crumbling life she can grab onto and share with someone, and thus it spreads from person to person, turning them into crazy recluses confined to their “bug proof” hotel room.

This transformation, beginning with the introduction of Peter and ending in truly tragic form, is the real core of the movie. It’s the story of lost souls who slowly grow to comfort each other and eventually goad each other further into madness. However unsettling the film might be, it’s still much more sad than scary. It’s painful to watch these people unravel so completely, behaving beyond reason and turning themselves into unbelievably deranged “bug fighters.” The bulk of the movie really isn’t at all like the highly advertised closing minutes of the film in which Peter and Agnes have spun utterly out of control. In no way does it compare to the viciousness of contemporary horror films like Saw and Hostel (with which advertisers have desperately tried to link it). Bug is actually a very methodical character drama up until its breaking point and its strength lies in its ability to create characters and emotions true enough to sustain the ridiculousness of what’s to come. There’s more than a few times when Peter and Agnes’ staunch paranoia drifts so far into lunacy that it becomes hard to fathom and maybe even laughable. It’s actually a film that succeeds much more as a straight drama than as a suspense thriller. The big finale is not just madness, it’s somewhat silly madness. Your appreciation for the film is likely to hinge almost completely on whether or not you can believe the characters enough to go along with the remarkably vicious and outlandish story progression. My guess is that it'll play better to more adventurous moviegoers than traditional horror fans.

Even with a few titters along the way, this is still a very solid and well crafted film. Friedkin has a very sharp eye for moody atmospherics and proves brilliant at making the intensely small hotel room that serves as the primary setting for the film feel like a menacing, contained little world of its own. This is a film that could have felt trapped by its own minimalism, but Friedkin finds fresh ways to film his tiny setting and impress upon us how lost in the desert, and truly isolated and alone these two people are. For their part, Judd and Shannon are stunning in their roles. They make an instantaneous connection to their broken hearted characters and once their paranoid love affair takes hold they portray madness in all its horrifying brutality. They are seriously uncomfortable performers to behold once they’ve made the leap. Shannon has such an animalistic aggression in his speech and body language that he can make the tiniest movement seem threatening. Despite its credibility straining finale, I could not help but feel for these characters. I suspect many people will just dismiss the over the top ending and move along, but for some this will be a truly haunting cinematic treasure.

Grade: B-

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

In the satisfyingly bleak opener to Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End numerous men, women, and children all line up to be hanged unceremoniously (I swear it’s not as grueling as it sounds) in what could very well be my favorite moment of the franchise (trilogy?). It seems that in the aftermath of securing the heart of Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) and thereby the command of him and his crew, the tyrannous Lord Beckett (Tom Hollander) has stripped citizens of their rights and demanded that all fraternization with pirates should be instantaneously and unquestionably punished by death. Meanwhile, prim lady turned self-elected scalawag Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley), her bitter but still adoring significant other Will Turner (Orlando Bloom), and the recently raised from the dead Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) are on a quest to rescue Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) from Davy Jones’s locker (i.e. hell) by voyaging to world’s end (i.e. Singapore). I could get into all the painstaking and illogical details, but then I’d just confuse myself. Suffice it to say, Jack needs to get rescued and the pirates need to come up with a plan to thwart Beckett if all is to be well again.

Speaking honestly, if for some reason you enjoyed Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, then I guess there’s really no point in reading this review. I hated that film and I disliked this one almost as much, but popular opinion seems to be riding against me when it comes to these things, so I’m willing to concede that maybe there’s something I’m just not getting. I don’t think so. But maybe.

In my opinion, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End is yet another lowest common denominator blockbuster loaded with painfully juvenile humor that resorts to the likes of dopey animal tricks in pursuit of as many easy laughs as possible. More importantly, it’s an unmotivated feature with a thin narrative that’s been stretched out to fill a seemingly endless 168 minutes. One thing I’ll never understand about these Pirates of the Caribbean films is what exactly convinced director Gore Verbinski and writers Ted Elliott & Terry Rossio that there was a public demand for films even longer than the already too long original film in the franchise. This movie does not feel quite as aimless and annoying as Dead Man’s Chest did, but it certainly gives the impression that very little ended up on the cutting room floor. It’s perhaps the most cluttered, manic, and incomprehensible film of the summer so far and I could barely muster enough enthusiasm to even mildly keep up with the film’s roundabout plot technique. People are constantly forming and then breaking alliances, cutting deals, changing motivations, swapping ships, bouncing around from strange locale to strange locale. I can deal with a silly, ambiguous plot if I at least enjoy the characters, but I could never really believe in any of these people. They’re all such cartoonish buffoons by this point. It seems their IQ drops with each subsequent film. Orlando Bloom, Keira Knightley, and Johnny Depp as the film’s trio of renegade antiheroes all look unenthused about the dumb shtick they are yet again peddling. Knightley, in particular, seems shrill and bored in what’s bound to be the most embarrassing performance of the young Academy Award nominee’s otherwise splendid career.

The one element of these films that truly is impressive is the special effects and CGI work done as well as the very detailed costumes and set pieces. Visually, it’s a stunning feature to look at, but Verbinski is all too eager to throw in as many ships, explosions, sight gags and everything else that can best destroy a perfectly good frame. Perhaps a little patience and sincerity might have made me care about this world and these characters just enough to keep their goofy antics appealing, but no such attention was given. By the time the movie reached its climactic battle scene (and trust me, it doesn’t come quick), I didn’t really know what anyone was fighting for anymore and I was totally unconcerned with who lived and who died. It’s hard to imagine how any film could fail more than that.

Grade: C-

Fay Grim

Near to the very top of my list of the cinema’s most unnecessary and unfortunate sequels (right alongside the recently released 28 Weeks Later) is Fay Grim, a slick, fast-paced, and utterly charmless sequel to the 1998 indie classic Henry Fool. What’s doubly troubling about this one is that it had all the elements in place to duplicate the original’s brilliance: writer/director Hal Hartley was once more at the helm and the complete principal cast was back for more including Parker Posey as the titular heroine, James Urbaniak as her working class literary hero brother Simon, and Thomas Jay Ryan reprising, albeit briefly, the role of the mysterious and captivating Henry Fool. The novelty of seeing these three actors back in these roles, particularly Ryan who walked away with Hartley’s original 1998 masterpiece and remains atop my list of the most sadly underemployed talents in Hollywood, was more than enough to lure me back for a second round, but sadly this film pales tremendously in comparison to its predecessor.

First and foremost, Hartley opted for a truly bizarre switch in tone. Henry Fool was a compelling, low key meditation on celebrity, the creative process, and the emerging impact of the internet on the world of art. Fay Grim is a silly espionage thriller that just barely scratches the surface of a parody on the global paranoia over terrorism. After escaping the country with the aid of Simon, Henry Fool has gone missing and now the United States government is beginning to believe that his oft talked about “confession,” an 8 volume collection of pedantic self-important ramblings that not even a close friend like Simon would consider publishable is somehow related to national security and may hold the secrets of the C.I.A. along with nuclear missile locations and a number of other bogus contrivances used to motivate this loopy, nonsense plot. Of course, the best possible solution is somehow to recruit his wife Fay Grim in the government's search for the books and get her awkwardly involved in a C.I.A. mission that seems massively underplanned to say the very least.

Posey, ever more glamorous and self-aware than she was back in 1998 at the height of her indie “it girl” reign, truly botches this one. I’m as much a fan of the lovely comedienne that she’s become as I was of the prickly budding starlet she originally emerged as, but in Henry Fool she was such an effortless and oddly likable shrew and this time around she’s so daffy and obvious that she reads like a dreadful Parker Posey imitator. The genuine article could never be so flat and broad when faced with Hal Hartley’s rhythmical, offbeat minimalist dialogue. Could she? It’s not completely her fault, though. Hartley is way off his game on this one. Not only is the new spy genre twist bluntly and obnoxiously executed, but even the simplest conversation scenes seem to drone on and never really touch on anything significant. Woody Allen’s memorable movie theater queue soliloquy in Annie Hall may have forever dissuaded film critics from using the term “indulgent” lightly or incorrectly, but there’s no more applicable way to describe this one. Maybe Hal Hartley and his cast had a good time making this, but it was painful to watch. Even still, there is unquestionably some mild satisfaction in getting to see more of Fay, Simon, and Henry even in the poor shape that they’re in. Thomas Jay Ryan, after almost a decade, still embodies Henry Fool with the same perfect mix of genius, gluttony, and mischief as he did in his original performance. If only he had something important to say.

Grade: C

The Boss Of It All

Having withstood massive criticism over his as yet unfinished America Trilogy – the first two installments of which, Dogville and Manderlay, were grueling, galvanizing cinema experiments that I happened to have loved – controversial genius Lars von Trier makes his return with this entertaining, wholly unexpected piece of formula comedy. The Boss of It All presumes a love of genre convention on the part of the audience and features von Trier in voice over segments skewering the contents of his own feature and teasing its viewers for their appreciation of what his artistic mind perceives as trite. At least that’s what he claims, but there’s reason to believe his motivations for the movie run deeper than mockery. At a loss for what exactly artistry means in the contemporary world, he seems to be pressing himself for answers to the unknown. If a complex slavery tome like Manderlay gets dismissed then how exactly can a director get his message across successfully? Perhaps it’s by claiming that there is no message at all. He insists that there will be “no preaching” in The Boss of It All and that all that is in store for us is “just a cozy time,” but whether he knows it or not (and I suspect he does) what he has actually made is a really brilliant, somewhat slight, but totally hilarious workplace comedy that both satirizes the genre and concedes a bit that it does have certain powers of persuasion.

Of course, even when actively attempting to make his material seem banal, von Trier crafts a premise far too clever to ever be a part of the sort of mundane mainstream comedies that he’s trying to emulate. In what plays as both a critique of corporate accountability (or lack thereof) and a send up of the self-important modern artistic process (of which von Trier seems willing to admit he is a part of) the film focuses on an out of work but deeply self-serious actor named Kristoffer (Jens Albinus) who gets hired for the unlikely gig of playing the “boss of it all” at an IT company whose real boss, Ravn, (Peter Ganzler) is too much of a sap to take the blame for his shrewd business decisions. For years, employees have gone without seeing the fictitious man in charge, allowing Ravn to simply write of all his firings and insensitive proposals by simply saying “the boss of it all said so.” In true screwball fashion, his scheme goes awry when a potential client demands to deal directly with the boss of the company and Kristoffer is forced to stick around at the office while Ravn waits for the deal to come to fruition. Gags about Kristoffer’s lack of company knowledge and confusion over his character’s identity carry the film’s lightweight premise along from there with von Trier interjecting equally funny sidebar commentary about just how silly and unoriginal everything within the film really is. Its delivery system of what he calls “living room realism” might not satisfy his preference for the theatrical, but it’s truly doubtful that he’s not quietly celebrating the heavy doses of skeptical whimsy this movie tosses out at the crowd, critiquing the corporate system and placing very little confidence in any one character. Neither business nor the arts comes off as a viable, honest institution here. The film registers as a fairly good time on the surface, but it really is as bleak as von Trier’s other work albeit with a softer plot and more indirect implications.

In the end, von Trier chides his audience by saying that anyone who got what they wanted out of what he calls a forgettable, clichéd feature got “what they deserved.” Whether or not he really thinks fans of this film are simply fools or whether he’s mocking his own cynical artistic outlook is unclear to me. He’s certainly not the type to be coy about openly hating his own audience. Either way, count me among the satisfied customers.

Grade: A-

DVD of the Week: Letters from Iwo Jima

There's a strong batch of new DVDs hitting stores today. Without a doubt, the best of the bunch is Clint Eastwood's World War II epic Letters from Iwo Jima. The acclaimed film comes in an individual set or alongside Eastwood's slightly less impressive but still very solid previous feature Flags Of Our Fathers in a 5 disc box set. Together the two films tell flip sides of the infamous Iwo Jima battle. Fathers focuses on the American side of things giving particular attention to the famous flag raising photo that would eventually become the model for the Iwo Jima memorial. Letters, starring Ken Watanabe in a magnificently concentrated performance, deals specifically with the Japanese side of the battle and the way in which one particular soldier (a remarkably talented unknown named Kazunari Ninomiya) reconciles the traditional Japanese code of honor with his personal desire to live to see his family once more.

Also on DVD today is Steven Soderbergh's wrongly overlooked The Good German, a stylized homage to 1940s noir that stars George Clooney as an American living overseas in a tumultuous post-World War II Europe. Cate Blanchett is brilliantly dramatic as the requisite femme fatale and Spider-Man's Tobey Maguire makes a welcome departure as a lecherous soldier trying to manipulate Blanchett into a pricey scheme. Last but not least is Venus, featuring vet thesp Peter O' Toole in his latest Academy Award nominated role. Here he gives a greatly comic and slyly tragic performance as a pervy older gent eyeing his friend's troubled young granddaughter as she makes an extended visit at his home. It's actually quite a lovely film, sort of a Lost In Translation with more bite and prickly leads.

Severance

If you were to cross Saw with “The Office” you might get something along the lines of Severance, an intermittently funny and entertaining horror-comedy mash up. I wanted to like this movie a lot more than I did, but in the end, the gags are just way too silly, the characters are too generic, and the plot is something of a vague corporate satire that serves no real purpose. The basic premise focuses on a group of corporate schlubs from a weapons company called Palisade on a “team building” retreat somewhere in Hungary. Their bus gets intercepted and they end up crashing at an abandoned nearby lodge where they eventually find themselves getting picked off one by one by what company mythology tells them is a war criminal that escaped from a facility years ago to seek vengeance on Palisade for providing the weaponry that was used against him. It’s a hard to explain concept, but it barely matters. The film has limited concern with narrative coherence. It’s mostly an excuse to photograph a series of bloody, sometimes comedic deaths that are often more icky than scary. In the wake of brutal films like Saw and Hostel, the violence here probably seems tame, but it’s also indicative of a weird compliance that dooms the film. It’s partly a horror movie send up that toys with clichés and convenient devices, but by its end it feels like it has simply become one of the movies it mocks. Save for the pervasive snarky wit, it has become pure formula by the time it reaches its final act.

Unlike films such as Shaun of the Dead which pulled off the difficult feat of being both a parody and a genre compatriot without implicating itself in the crimes of its comrades, this movie feels like a sloppy, sillier version of all the rest. Imagine jokes about self-righteous smirking post-decapitation, rocket launchers that don’t quite work right, prostitutes stripping down to form a chain of clothing long enough to climb out of the ditch that has trapped them. Laura Harris plays Maggie, the typical female character that everyone secretly lusts after. Danny Dyer is Steve, the typical stoner lothario. Almost every other character is a typical horror movie stock persona as well and the film never does enough to make them any more interesting than that. It’s a funny film, a perfectly goofy assortment of pratfalls and weaponry jokes. I still think the film had much bigger intentions than that, though. It could have been a smart, sharp spoof on both horror movies and cutthroat international corporations, but instead it’s just a mixed bag of hit or miss jokes with some mildly spooky figures lurking in shadows.

Grade: C+

Away From Her

Away From Her is a heartrending drama about one woman’s battle with Alzheimer’s disease and the husband who is forced to watch her mind deteriorate. Fiona (Julie Christie) and Grant (Gordon Pinsent) have been married for more than 40 years when she begins to realize that she’s slowly forgetting things and becoming unable to function as she once did. Together, they decide that she’d be best served in a facility for people with similar difficulties and therein lies the heartbreak. A moment to moment recap would be futile, but it’s easy to imagine how this kind of material could be painfully tragic. One of the beautiful things about this film is the delicacy with which it treats its characters. This could be fodder for a dull, fatuous movie of the week, but the steady, subtle style of actress turned first time director Sarah Polley and the nuanced performances of her brilliant cast turn this into one of the finest films of the year so far.

The film depicts a wonderfully multidimensional and believable couple who has had both good and bad times and who share, early in the film as her condition is just beginning, moments together that are full of life and humor. It’s doubly tragic then, when down the line Fiona no longer really recognizes her husband and cannot really understand why he is visiting so often. He confuses her and so she begins something of an affair with another patient which is obviously crushing to Grant. His great act of kindness is the way he tolerates whatever Fiona needs to be happy. When people ask him why he visits just to watch her spend her days with her new beau, he simply says that he wants to see her and that he could not live without seeing her. They share a very lovely yet not saccharine bond that’s falling apart, but occasionally emerges despite the disease from time to time in mesmerizing, joyous relapses.

I honestly cannot say enough about this film or the work of Christie and Pinsent who each delivers a masterful performance that truly brings these troubled characters to life. Sarah Polley’s career as an actress has stalled as of late, but as a filmmaker she’s just beginning to show us what she is capable of doing. Here she adapts a short story (“The Bear Came Over The Mountain”) into a stunning feature film of simple beauty and quiet truth. It’s a subject that’s not often covered with this degree of sincerity and brutal honesty, and I encourage everyone to take the opportunity to go out and see this truly amazing film.

Grade: A

Shrek The Third

Shrek the Third picks up where the previous installment in the franchise left off and offers up more or less the same sort of fun, silly smatterings of juvenile humor and sharper, adult oriented wit. This is probably the most uninventive and unoriginal in the series, but the humor and vaguely positive messages of hope that made us all love the original film are still mimicked well enough here to make this a mostly satisfying sequel. The concept of the ogre Shrek as an untraditional, fairytale hero was a fresh and funny skewering of the world’s most timeless fables back when the franchise launched, but it’s now an understood, tolerated idea whose potency has waned. The third film touches on a lot of the same themes, picking up feminism and pacifism as new positive suggestions for kids, but mostly sticking with the “be yourself” mantra that’s become the signature of the series.

In this new film Shrek (Mike Myers) is trying to dodge his claim to the royal throne of Far Far Away by tracking down the only living heir, Arthur, (Justin Timberlake) who turns out to be nothing more than a high school abuse case bullied ceaselessly by the likes of jousting champion Lancelot (John Krasinski). On top of this, Shrek’s ogre bride Fiona (Cameron Diaz) has just announced that she’s pregnant and the eternally thwarted Prince Charming (Rupert Everett) has hatched a new scheme to become king by rallying together all the other fairytale villains that never got their “happily ever after” ending.

It’s a perfectly good-hearted, clever sequel but it lacks some of the larger than life punch of its predecessors. So many of the gags are callbacks to material from earlier films that you start to realize that however entertaining this might be, it is still largely a retread. All of the likable Shrek crew returns, though, and it’s still far funnier and more creative than the average animated movie nowadays (i.e. it doesn’t involve penguins or any sort of animal that has escaped from the zoo and now needs to learn how to survive in the human world). It’s mostly just more of the same, but sometimes that’s enough.

Grade: B-

DVD of the Week: Pan's Labyrinth

Two of my favorite films from last year are new to DVD this week: Pan's Labyrinth and The Fountain. Labyrinth is an adult-size fairy tale from director Guillermo del Toro about a young girl's mystical journey at the time of the Spanish civil war. She meets a faun who tells her she is destined to be a princess and as the country falls to pieces around her, she sets out to escape the cruel world she lives in through magical means. It's a very eerie and haunting feature that earned major acclaim and 3 Academy Awards. The Fountain is a far less universally beloved film, but it has its fair share of loyal supporters. Darren Aronofsky's latest is a love story that defies logic and tocuhes on one of fiction's most explored themes: human mortality. It's a beautiful, enigmatic science fiction epic that runs through multiple centuries and never quites congeals into any sort of cohesive narrative. It's an art film, and an abstract art film to boot. Many people will be baffled and frustrated by it. I was actually both of those things at points during the film, but seeing it through to completion hits a very unexpected, inexplicable nerve. It's a love it or hate it experience, but it's something I very much loved. Rachel Weisz and Hugh Jackman star and give probably their best performances to date.

28 Weeks Later

28 Weeks Later picks up six months after the events of Danny Boyle’s eerie apocalyptic masterpiece 28 Days Later, and sadly has only a fraction of the original’s creativity and originality of vision. In this film, all the inhabitants of London who have avoided being infected by the terrifying virus that turns people into monsters fueled by rage are now housed in a facility run by the American military. The last infected person is believed to have been killed months earlier and now the task at hand is simply to rescue those remaining and clean up the mess of corpses in the city streets. We pick up the story with a new character named Don (Robert Carlyle), an initially interesting anti-hero who leaves his own wife for dead in an attack by the infected. He eventually reunites with his two children (Imogen Poots and Mackintosh Muggleton) at the survivor community only to later reignite the virus everyone had hoped was finally finished.

The primary difference between 28 Days Later and 28 Weeks Later is made evident before a single frame rolls on the new film. The opening logo informs us that the film is a 20th Century Fox production. 28 Days Later came out of Fox Searchlight, the buying house associated with independent films and festival purchases. Whereas that film was a moody indie creeper, this one aims to excite, scare, and disgust with the aggressive, indulgent, consumerist mentality of a major corporation. It’s as if the producers felt that the only part of the original film that audiences really cared about was its violence and bloodshed. What they missed, of course, was that the first film wasn’t truly all that violent. It was largely a suggestive film that used the threat of imminent brutality to terrify its audience. In 28 Weeks Later everyone is dying all the time and the suspense is nil. Why should a single death matter when there are hundreds transpiring simultaneously? How can anyone possibly care for underdeveloped crowds of people simply being torn to pieces in what is ultimately nothing greater than an elaborately staged bloodbath. The infected in this movie don’t lurk in corners and unnerve us with their unexpected arrivals into frame. There’s just a big damn fleet of them constantly chasing everyone. It’s not scary or remotely troubling. All that there is here is endless ugly death and not a single flash of artistic technique to be found.

Director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo clearly has talent at capturing beautiful images and offers up enough references to the first film, both in content and in camerawork, that I truly believe him to be a fan hoping to do justice to this unexpectedly franchised concept. It may be that I’m clinging a little too tightly to the original film, but everything about this movie struck me as an aggravating, shrill bastardization of that great movie. Every inch of Boyle’s film felt pitch-perfect from the fuzzy, handheld camerawork down to the way the infected looked and moved. It might be hard to explain on paper, but on sight you’ll see the way Fresnadillo wrong-headedly adapts these techniques. For example, he uses wide, overhead shots of London in a similar way that Boyle did in the first, but where Boyle’s footage was horrifying in the way it made London look like a dying, desolate city, Fresnadillo just simply seems to be capturing the city in bright light and elegant sunsets. It’s not necessarily a more glamorous film, but there is certainly a more forced, grating type of stylization here. Boyle’s film toyed with flashes and rapid editing, but Fresnadillo’s film is so frantic that it’s dizzying, annoying, and even difficult to follow at times. Even the infected seem to lack the haunting edge of those in the last film. Boyle’s monsters were bleeding, menacing bodies being thrust forward by pure rage at a speed that revolutionized the zombie genre. The ones here just look like a bunch of fast runners with bloody faces.

Nothing is remotely scary about this film, the social commentary is obvious and dumb, and most importantly of all, I couldn’t care less about any of the characters. Don strikes a brief chord of emotional significance in the opening scene, but it’s only about 20 minutes before the characters all lose their relevance and just become part of a mass slaughter. Honestly, the only thing I wondered about during the whole film was where the characters from the original film wound up. They were vibrant, flawed, funny, realistic people that you cared for and hoped would overcome the threats at hand. I think of scenes like the one where they all loot an abandoned grocery store, and remember how strangely warm Boyle’s film could be. That was why it was so good. It was a science fiction satire that felt true in a way that genre films rarely do these days. It’s certainly not the same with 28 Weeks Later. Everything here is done in excess and to the point that it loses all effect. The first was a minimal, intimate affair. This is a massive, overdone, utterly stupid cash-in on a great idea. I hope that weeks don’t become months and Fox doesn’t go through with yet another shallow, bloodthirsty sequel.

Grade: D+

Georgia Rule

Fist and foremost, I think it’s important to establish that Georgia Rule is not the movie that you’d expect it to be based on its massive ad campaign. While the studio would love you to believe it’s just a sweet comedy from the director of Pretty Woman, it’s very plainly not that simple. Pretty Woman vet Garry Marshall is at the helm, but the film is only mildly comedic, and primarily a drama about family secrets, namely the potential molestation of the teenage Rachel, (Lindsay Lohan) a wild child known for lying to her mother but who just might be telling the truth this time. It is rated R and it is not a “fun for the whole family!” flick.

At the start of the film we meet the irrepressible Rachel and her distraught mother, Lilly, (Felicity Huffman) on their way to Idaho where Rachel is due to work out her teenage rebellion with her even more defiant grandma, Georgia (Jane Fonda). Georgia is known for her “rules” for which there are to be no exceptions, and a consequence of which is her strained relationship with her own daughter who fled to escape her mother’s strict life code. When Rachel arrives in the small town, she immediately sets out to assert her aggressive, sexpot attitude with Georgia and all the locals. Both the town and her family start experiencing shakeups, but of course, it’s all with the sort of sugary sparkle that guarantees a happy ending.

It’s the weird tone that most dooms this movie. This is the sort of material that takes very precise, pitch-perfect acting and directing to pull off and this film just doesn’t have that. It’s a hit and miss fiasco in every sense. At times, I was absolutely livid at its stupidity and forced melodrama and then, at other times, I found it strangely touching and biting in all the right ways. If only it could have resolved its messiness, it might have worked. But it didn’t, and it doesn’t. The best I can say is that it’s a memorable failure and certainly never dull.

The performances here are as confounding and half-hearted as everything else about the movie. Each member of the cast has moments in which they crackle with inspiringly vivid life and texture, but also others where they feel forced or wholly detached from what they’re doing. Lohan, in particular, comes off as clueless and inconsistent, and even though that unperfected, natural edge sometimes works to her advantage, it generally seems to be her own undoing. How many more chances will she get to “prove herself” as a serious actress? This probably is her best performance yet, mostly because her character is closer to her actual personality than any other that she’s ever played. Let’s be honest, no one really believed her in the overly adorable roles she undertook in the teen films of her past, and seeing her play a nasty bitch is deeply satisfying. When she syncs up with Rachel, she catches a great nuance that only someone of the current party girl generation could capture. She’s strong-willed and yet very desperate, begging through her bad behavior to be stopped, cut off, scolded, or any such thing that might finally save her from herself. Lohan’s own recklessness seeps into the performance and comes through quite visibly in her tired eyes and chameleonic appearance. If you look closely, you’ll notice that from moment to moment, scene to scene, her hair will be different colors ranging from all red to pure blonde. She also shuffles through skin tones as well. There’s about 4 or 5 shades of orangey spray tan on display throughout the film and none of the switches make any sort of logical sense. She’ll be walking down the street looking pale and then in the mere minutes it takes to reach her destination, she’s completely tanned. It’s as if Lohan wasn’t even aware she was making a movie at the time, shifting her ragged, over-abused waif-like body casually from nightclub to soundstage and bringing her prickly paparazzi persona along for the clumsy ride. There’s passion in her work, but it’s wholly unprofessional and wildly flawed.

The movie somehow ends up being a weepy, life affirming story about the importance of family and the power of stubborn women, but everything in between feels awfully bleak to have such an outcome. Of course, I mean bleak in content alone. No matter what the tragedy, the movie is shiny as ever in terms of its look and feel. Marshall shoots a “My dad raped me!” scene in the same vaguely beautiful way he shoots an “I love you” scene. It’s part of the greater identity crisis that plagues the whole film. It takes magic to make melodrama feel like truth and this film just never quite gets around to pulling the rabbit out of its hat.

Grade: C+

The Ex

The Ex is a frustrating, perpetually insipid comedy that borders on painful at times. Zach Braff stars as Tom Reilly, an all around nice guy who was recently fired for defending a coworker and is now forced to take a job working under his wife’s father at the world’s stupidest ad firm. Amanda Peet plays his wife, Sofia, who has taken it upon herself to quit her job in order to become a full-time mother to their newborn son, adding extra pressure for Tom to succeed in his new job. Their new life goes well enough until, of course, the arrival of Chip (Jason Bateman) into their lives. Chip is a high school friend and brief fling of Sofia’s who seems to never have gotten over her moving on and marrying another man. He’s also in a wheelchair, which, as you can imagine, leads to about 2 dozen moronic paraplegia jokes. Despite whatever sympathy his disability may bring him, Chip is a purely evil saboteur who has set his sights on breaking up Tom and Sofia. As Tom’s “mentor” at his new job, he’s in the position to play mind games on the newbie that gradually cause a rift between him and his wife.

The Ex seems to think it’s a much more capable movie than it actually is. There are scenes, I guess, designed to satire the modern workplace, but they’re all so flat and toothless. It’s mostly just a movie about acting silly. There are some sharp little relationship moments here and there, but for the most part the comedy is stuck in first grade, food fights and all. The movie also feels a bit like an abridged version of a much fuller film. No scene ever really seems to come to full fruition. They all run through a few gags each and then suddenly end, rapidly and succinctly chugging the story along as if someone thought the cure to this movie was to keep it moving fast enough that no one would notice its weaknesses.

Braff, Peet, and Bateman are each so likable and funny that they do manage to keep the movie more or less watchable. Bateman in particular, who is both entertainingly diabolical with Tom and hilariously straight-faced when anyone else is in proximity, really brings something funny to the dead material. It’s not an abysmal film, but it’s so lightweight and meekly funny that it barely even registers.

Grade: C

Home of the Brave (Re-Release)

For anyone who didn't read my criticsim of this horrid war veteran melodrama back in December, here it is one more time. Apparently, the people at MGM are confident enough in the film to re-release it to a limited number of theaters once more. The December run was part of a botched and wholly unmerited Oscar campaign that seemed to have more to do with the "serious content" of the the film than any sort of measure of its quality. Samuel L. Jackson, Jessica Biel, and 50 Cent star here in largely cartoonish roles as soliders returning from Iraq in varying degrees of distress. Hopefully, this second run doesn't last long either. This one's a real stinker. For the complete review go here

Trailers: Eagle Vs. Shark

I tried really hard to come up with a description for this film without using the word "quirky," but I just couldn't do it. This is a festival favorite of utterly awkward proportions in which two losers form an oddball romance. Its the sort of thing that either strikes you as wonderful or frustrates you instantly with its attempts at making its own strangeness adorable. I personally can't wait to see it. It will be in theaters June 15th.

Trailer:

http://www.ifilm.com/video/2836763

DVD of the Week: Fur

This week I have what's sure to be a polarizing recommendation, Steven Shainberg's unconventional and largely panned Diane Arbus biopic Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus. Nicole Kidman stars in this beautiful, haunting fable about "what might have motivated Arbus' work." Here Arbus is recreated as a doting housewife desperate to escape the confines of her domestic life. She meets Lionel, (Robert Downey, Jr.) a former circus performer covered completely in fur, who introduces her to a new world of outcasts and misfits who inspire her to explore new ground in her photography. It's far from a factual account of the artist's life, but what it does manage to do is create an elegant, stylized, and deeply satisfying story about a woman's journey from surface conformity to true personal expression. It's a dividing piece that has been dismissed by many, and loved by a few (myself included). Anyone with a passion for absurd art house loveliness should give it a try.

For the less outrageous film viewer, I have another wrongly maligned but less elaborately odd movie for you to check out: Anthony Minghella's Breaking and Entering. Jude Law stars alongside Robin Wright-Penn as distant spouses in posh London whose lives become invaded by the darker elements of society when Law opens up a business in a less wealthy area to save on rent. Juliette Binoche plays the mother of a teenage burglar responsible for ransacking Law's offices. In pursuit of his stolen property, Law's character strikes up a relationship with the women that is at first purely manipulative, but ultimately more complex. Critics called it lethargic, and too pristine in its depictions of life, but I couldn't disagree more. Minghella often inserts somewhat theatrical elements into his movies, but here he uses his sophistication as a tool to better illustrate the crossroads between classes. It's a very solid film. Also worth your time this week is the bleak indie ensemble drama The Dead Girl starring Toni Collette, Marcia Gay Harden, and Brittany Murphy among many. It follows the aftermath of a young girl's murder on both her nearest relatives and complete strangers all of whom are affected by her tragic demise. Its one of the rawest, truest films to come out of 2006 and was nominated for multiple Independent Spirit Awards including Best Feature.

Trailers: Joshua

Here's another Sundance creeper that's making its theatrical debut this summer. Joshua stars Vera Farmiga and Sam Rockwell as parents of a deeply creepy little boy who may or may not pose a threat to his family. It's the latest in a long line of horror movies with weirdo children at their core, but this one boasts an eerie realism that was missing from movies like The Omen. It's less a tale of a fiendish demon spawn, and more a story of a psychologically disturbed little prodigy whose big mind might turn out to do more harm than good. The film hits theaters July 6th.

Trailer:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=2qhILlTXOyg

Trailers: Fido

Could this Sundance favorite be the next Shaun of the Dead? If the trailer is any indication, then it may come close. The general premise here is a suburban utopia gone awry...with zombies. In the world of Fido, zombies have been domesticated by the human race and turned into harmless house servants. Everyone owns their very own doting zombie until somehow the zombies lead an uprising and cause calamity in the quiet town of Willard. Billy Connolly, Carrie-Ann Moss, Dylan Baker, and Tim Blake Nelson star in this strange looking (in a good way) comedy due in theaters June 15th.

Trailer:
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=2026383671

Civic Duty

Civic Duty is a dark, contemplative thriller that loosely adapts the Rear Window concept into a post-9/11 paranoia parable. Peter Krause stars as Terry Allen, an out of work C.P.A. who begins to notice some strange behavior from the “Middle Eastern guy” who lives downstairs. His free time spent waiting for calls from potential employers gives him ample opportunity to become a full on voyeur, and his gradual transformation from average joe to self-appointed terrorist hunter is a twisted psychological evolution that’s fascinating to watch.

I won’t go in to any sort of extensive detail about what transpires or who is the justified party here. I think it’s fairly vital that each viewer draw his or her own conclusions and experience the narrative without any foreknowledge of what’s to come. In fact, the film is generally ambiguous and murky in its explanations. It allows perception to play a key role, and stresses how something harmless can be seen as dangerous and vice versa. Terry sees potential terrorism in everything his neighbor does, but his wife (Kari Matchett) simply rationalizes it all away. It really becomes a question of how each viewer and each character perceives things and less about what the actual truth might be.

The film is weakened a bit by a jumpy, jittery, rapid fire photography style, but benefited by its low key digital look when the camera finally stays still. The reason it really works is that despite the intensity of the material and the weight of its objectives, you still feel like these characters are real somehow. There’s such great attention to detail and real care taken in writing lines that on the surface portray casual remarks but beneath speak volumes about a character’s true personality. Early scenes seem foreboding in retrospect where they had once just seemed like irrelevant exposition. It’s a great film with rich performances all around. Krause and Matchett are both extraordinary as are Richard Schiff as a skeptical FBI agent and Khaled Abol Naga making his American film debut as the neighbor in question.

This really is a film about contemporary culture as a whole. It of course deals with the constant threat of terror, but also less directly with the conundrum of persistent media bombardment in American lives, the dehumanization of even the most seemingly simple activities, and the general confounding pressures of the modern age, all of which play a role in shaping the mind of Terry Allen. There’s a lot to process here, and it’s bound to linger with you long after the final frame.

Grade: A-

Lucky You

Lucky You is the sort of mixed up movie that feels like two films crisscrossing simultaneously – in this case, a blithe romantic comedy and a biting poker drama. Eric Bana stars as Huck Cheever, a full-time gambler living without the security of a day job and minus the support of any family or friends. His dad, L.C. Cheever, (Robert Duvall) is a renowned poker champion but the only connection he has with his son is an occasional card game between them. Huck’s reckless life comes to an impasse when he meets Billie Offer, (Drew Barrymore) a sympathetic bar singer who has not yet been burned by the perils of Las Vegas. She challenges him to forgo his compulsive card playing aggressions and to his surprise, he actually considers doing it. Unfortunately, Billie’s arrival into his life also coincides with his tireless, unseemly efforts to earn admittance into the World Series of Poker where he hopes to finally prove himself superior to his estranged father.

Billie’s charms are believable as a catalyst for change in Huck’s life, but the romantic relationship between the two marks the lowest points in this generally enjoyable and solidly crafted feature. Barrymore feels particularly flat in her role, relying much too heavily on her waning ability to be insatiably adorable. She honestly seems far too mature by now to be stuck playing such a small town square. She’s a gem at expressing optimism, but innocence and naiveté seem incredibly false coming from someone who conveys a “seen it all” attitude with every fiber of her being. It’s Bana and Duvall who really shine here. They perfectly capture a soulful ruggedness that makes their tough guy characters burn with deeper complexities. In one particularly revealing scene, Billie excuses herself to take an irrelevant phone call, leaving Huck and L.C. together to share one of the very best scenes in the film. By the time, Barrymore reemerged I’d forgotten that she was even there in the first place and wondered why she even needed to be.

At its best, the film’s dialogue pops and its characters dazzle, but there are numerous sloppy moments in the mix as well. Most come exclusively in the form of Barrymore’s tepid line readings and the wrongly sugar sweet tone of her character, but nonetheless, it’s difficult to separate the superb half of the film from the pervasive dribble that does it so much damage. Screenwriter Eric Roth has a wonderful ear for the stern voices of coarse gentlemen, but feels lost penning cutesy pseudo-philosophical mutterings for Billie to toss out amidst the far more enthralling dramatic material at hand. The poker sequences are staged brilliantly by director Curtis Hanson who has a keen eye for what makes these relatively sedate looking card games so intoxicatingly exciting. He also gets the best out of each performer as they navigate the complex performances necessary for any scene in which characters are supposed to be cautious of their body language and facial expressions as they are in poker. Bana must not only play each moment, but also play the spin Huck is putting on it for the benefit of his competitors. All this detail makes each game tricky to choreograph, but they all come together quite magically in the end. It’s difficult to calibrate and recalibrate a film’s tone to accommodate full out drama scenes, competitive gaming scenes, and delicate romance scenes all in one narrative. This movie gets two of those three categories right, which isn’t bad at all.

Grade: B-

Spider-Man 3

Sam Raimi and Co. essentially mastered the art of the modern blockbuster with the trendsetting Spider-Man 2 back in 2004. Now the whole crew is back to settle for less in this inferior, but still solid sequel. At its start, Peter Parker (Tobey Maguire) has resolved his anxiety over his Spider-Man alter ego and has grown fond of basking in Spidey’s fame and glory. Meanwhile, girlfriend and now secret identity confidant, Mary Jane Watson, (Kirsten Dunst) is living her dream with a new role in a Broadway musical. All is well until Parker develops a bit of egomania, Mary Jane begins to get jealous of the barely utilized Gwen Stacey, (Bryce Dallas Howard), two separate supervillains emerge with a craving to kill Spider-Man, and, of course, the all important symbiote from outer space falls from the sky to accentuate Peter’s burgeoning arrogance and foster his newfound taste for vengeance against his uncle’s killer, Flint Marko, (Thomas Haden Church) who was recently atomized (or some such vaguely scientific verb phrase) with particles of sand to become one of the two supervillains mentioned above: Sandman. The other is former friend Harry Osborn (James Franco) who is now picking up where his evil Green Goblin father left off with a surprisingly soapy twist

The film is not by any means a complete dud. The bulk of it is generally entertaining, admirably ambitious in scope, and satisfyingly passionate about the characters it helped solidify in film two. There is certainly more care taken here than in the making of the average action fantasy spectacle, and there’s even some concern about thematic continuity (“vengeance = bad” is a biggie for sure). Even still, there is simply something all around rickety and tired about this thrill ride. The action sequences (which are admittedly never my favorite) are doubly frenetic this time around – so much so that you can hardly keep track of who’s pummeling who and how badly. Blurs zoom through the frame as characters hop from building to building or bounce around subway cars. There’s very little potency to any of these sequences as they mostly just whiz by before you can grasp what’s happening exactly. It just becomes about routine building crushing and getting Spider-Man to rescue as many rapidly descending women falling to their deaths as humanly possible. Even more frustrating, though, is the conversely lethargic pace of the dramatic material. Both Maguire and Dunst seem to be on autopilot and the reasoning for the supposed emotional distance felt by their characters feels obnoxiously petty for such an epic story. You can’t really connect with characters that appear to have contrived, or inexplicable motivations. It’s really the overarching problem with this film. Where the last installment felt like a naturally unfurling fantasy tale, this one feels like a bent and stretched approximation of one. Even the comedy moments come at a painfully stupid cost (e.g. apparently the Venom symbiote turns Peter Parker into some kind of dorky misogynistic cartoon similar to Johnny Bravo, finger guns and all).

That probably seems like a lot of negativity, but how can you not be severe with anything regarding itself as the “film even of the summer.” More importantly, it’s hard not to feel dismay at the disparity between the quality of films 2 and 3 in this presumed to be unfinished franchise. There are definitely some real bright spots here that should be mentioned as well. My favorite performances were actually by primarily periphery characters, particularly Rosemary Harris who has been delivering soulful speeches about the importance of heroes for 3 films running and never missed a beat. I also really enjoyed the underrated Topher Grace playing the slick, conniving Eddie Brock even though he seems to have gotten shafted in the long run when you measure his actual screen time versus other villains and narrative key points. There’s undoubtedly an overstuffed feeling for the film, but at least it’s safe to say you’ll never be bored. In truth, the many interweaving developments all bounce off one another nicely, and culminate in a way that gives each its due justice. However, there’s still a feeling that each one perhaps had a little more potential than was ever developed upon here.

I doubt that anyone will truly love this film, but I don’t think it will completely put people off either. It’s an interesting attempt to go “darker,” but somehow in the midst of all the “dark” there’s something that just rings false. There are moments here too stupid to tolerate even in the realm of fantasy where all bets are off. It’s a matter of give and take. There are lots of interesting characters, engaging developments, cool moments, and all of that good stuff. There are also a number of “What the hell?” montages and some really abhorrent storytelling. It’s a mixed bag, but it’s still a pretty fun ride nonetheless.

Grade: B-

Trailers: A Mighty Heart

The very nature of Angelina Jolie's performance in the upcoming A Mighty Heart makes it a magnet for media frenzy and awards buzz. Her portrayal of the widowed Mariane Pearl (wife of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl) has been 2007's most talked about performance for months now sight unseen, but there is finally a trailer available to showcase some of Jolie's work in the transformative role (oft critiqued even before footage became available for what some consider to be a borderline racist darkening of the Academy Award Winner's skin to play the biracial Pearl). Writer/director Michael Winterbottom adapted the story from Pearl's own book about her experiences investigating the disappearance of her husband and most of the filming was done on location in the very places Pearl visited during his final days (a fact that has fostered numerous tabloid stories about bad behavior on the part of the film crew in these very un-Hollywood locales). Fears of exploitation still abound, but Winterbottom is one of the most gifted, eclectic, and vigilant contemporary filmmakers, which gives me hope that this has the potential to stir up more than just blunt sympathy (i.e. be more like United 93 than World Trade Center). Dan Futterman (a screenplay Oscar nominee for Capote) takes on the daunting task of playing Daniel Pearl. However, it's been said that the role does not feature prominently into the onscreen narrative as the movie portrays Mariane's responses to the situation much more than any sort of point by point account of the events of this tragedy. A Mighty Heart will hit theaters June 22nd.

Trailer:

http://video.msn.com/v/us/v.htm??g=6b507661-8513-4025-abf2-9bc60f07d3fc&f=01/64&fg&

Diggers

Diggers is a solidly written and performed dramedy that chronicles the daily grind of the lives of four Long Island clam diggers in the 1970s. Paul Rudd plays a dreary, distracted would-be photographer mulling around the neighborhood after his father dies and leaves him lacking motivation. Maura Tierney plays his self-discovering older sister, exploring a relationship with local lothario Jack (Ron Eldard). Best of all, though, is screenwriter Ken Marino playing a self-penned role as a volatile family man strapped for cash and coping poorly.

The film takes its local lingo and accents very seriously, suggesting its period setting with undisruptive subtlety but with the fullness of a novel. It doesn’t force the era down your throat, but there’s a clear sense of time and place, and of precisely what kind of men these are. Marino, a local of the time, has a great ear for rough authentic dialogue, and the kind of flawed, brutish affections of working class laborers. His character is passionate about his family and yet utterly obnoxious in his aggressions. He even nails the kind of stupid awkwardness of barroom brawls and interpersonal altercations. He works very hard to keep his film from feeling like a film, and seeming like life in motion.

It’s a somewhat underwhelming movie by its small nature, but its tender, human, slice of life dramatics are well executed and surprisingly funny as well. Each character gets a minor arc of evolution. Even though, none are truly riveting, they are each believable and interesting in small ways. This is a nostalgic indie talker that’s perfect for a certain audience, but in the grand scheme of modern film could very easily slip away into nothingness. Hopefully, it will find a way of reaching the kind of niche audience that can appreciate its charms.

Grade: B

Waitress

Waitress is a completely, unabashedly lovely little indie comedy. Keri Russell stars as Jenna, a pie shop waitress and superb baker who also happens to be married to the neediest, meanest schlub in town (Jeremy Sisto). Having planned her great escape from her belligerent spouse, she’s none too happy to discover that she also happens to be carrying his baby. She meets with the new doctor in town, Jim Pomatter,(Nathan Fillion) to weigh her options, and eventually decides to have the baby but not be happy about it.

The film is a darling (sometimes overly) confection of slapstick and gooey optimism that plays something like an old screwball comedy topped off with Sundance era quirk. Thankfully, Jenna’s dry, drawling Southern wit snips away at most of the exceedingly adorable moments as does the overall strength of the ensemble, each member of which gives a performance of surprising sincerity in the midst of madcap mania. Jenna’s situation is often bleak and she gets to fully explore the darkness of her dilemma. Of course, she gets her happy ending (or almost, anyway), but that doesn’t mean the journey has to be entirely carefree. In addition to the baby that she claims she’ll never love, she’s also toying with the possibility of having an affair with her new doctor despite the threats of her cantankerous, abusive husband. The whole movie is a finely tuned balancing act of goofy montages and sudden, piercing dramatic weight. For the most part, there’s nary a misstep, but as the movie spins along it starts to get tangled in its own web of half-cute heartbreak, leading to a light, enjoyable but maybe a little too perfect finale.

The tone reflects a lovely creative voice held by star, writer, and director Adrienne Shelly whose tragic murder earlier this year looms heavily over the bittersweet film. Shelly’s last work is as sweetly satisfying a footprint as anyone could hope to leave behind. It would take quite a cynic to pooh-pooh her positively radiant final performance. As Jenna’s shy, love starved co-worker Dawn she manages to steal scenes and win hearts in ways a leading lady never could. It’s the sort of wonderful sidebar role that offers endearing tangents to offset the main plotline just enough to keep the material from running itself into the ground.

Shelly’s talents are only a small part of the all-around genius ensemble cast. Russell is brilliant in the leading role. Her face is stuffed full of worried expression and yet it also effortlessly emits the kind of warmth that many romantic comedy starlets futilely scrunch their noses and bite their lips trying to capture. She’s matched on screen by Nathan Fillion playing the nervous, good-hearted object of her affections. His flibbertigibbet personality is actually a huge step forward when you think about it. Leading men tend mostly to just swagger around and be reassuring a la Matthew McConaughey is just about anything, but Fillion makes Dr. Pomatter compassionate, vaguely troubled and a whole lot of fun to watch. Rounding out the cast is the brave Jeremy Sisto letting himself be as loathsome as could be, Cheryl Hines playing a kindly trollop in a funny little subplot of her own, and the legendary Andy Griffith who is better than ever as the pie shop’s cranky but secretly caring owner.

You can poke about a dozen holes in the sugary logic of this movie, or gripe about some of its less effective stylistic choices (I’ll admit the direction is a tad amateurish), but it’s still a genuinely funny, rewarding feel good comedy that’s amply entertaining and deeply likable.

Grade: B+