Trailers: Eastern Promises

Release Date: September 14
Story: The new thriller from director David Cronenberg reteams him with his "A History of Violence" leading man Viggo Mortensen. The film follows the mysterious and ruthless Nikolai (Mr. Mortensen), who is tied to one of London’s most notorious organized crime families. His carefully maintained existence is jarred when he crosses paths with Anna (Academy Award nominee Naomi Watts), an innocent midwife trying to right a wrong, who accidentally uncovers potential evidence against the family. Now Nikolai must put into motion a harrowing chain of murder, deceit, and retribution.
Director: David Cronenberg (“A History of Violence,” “Naked Lunch,” “The Dead Zone”)
Writer: Steve Knight (“Dirty Pretty Things”)
Cast: Viggo Mortensen, Naomi Watts, Vincent Cassel, Armin Mueller-Stahl

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http://www.focusfeatures.com/viewer.php?f=eastern_promises&c=trailer&ext=mov&w=480&h=260

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Sicko

Sicko is Michael Moore's latest, and possibly least controversial documentary film. While his previous work has been at times more belligerent than edifying, Sicko showcases a mature and sensitive side of Moore that only sells his witty, fast-paced social commentary with greater aplomb. Moore's comic sensibilities are alive and well, but there's a more good-natured usage of his acid tongue here that makes it much more enjoyable and much less uncomfortable. It's the American health care system that's on trial here and from the very beginning of the film, Moore puts emphasis on its victims more so than himself. His much debated screen persona, a tactic maligned by those who prefer the "invisible camera" style of more classical documentaries, is not quite so overbearing in this case. It's not "The Michael Moore Show." Moore is mostly just the narrator of the numerous vignettes featured detailing the many incidences of cruelty on the behalf of HMOs and the various amounts of red tape lobbied at the ill and grieving when they should be receiving support and care.

The film is more or less a public outcry to have a universal health care plan in America similar to those found in most Western nations. Moore happily points out recent statistics that weigh the American health care system at #37 globally, putting it just above Slovenia. He visits with a number of countries that have a national health care plan in effect including Canada, England, France, and the much discussed visit to Cuba. It's actually the Cuba sequence that best reflects the hilarious and heartbreaking strong suits of the feature. Moore gathers together a number of the sick people without health care in America that he has met during the process of making this film, particularly three 9/11 rescue workers who were not covered under government care because they were spur of the moment volunteers and not official employees of government rescue services. They go first to Guantanamo Bay, the unlikeliest of places, but the only American territory where universal health care is provided - in this case it's for the detainees. Standing in a boat in the bay of Cuba, Moore gets on a tiny megaphone and proclaims "I've got some 9/11 rescue workers here that need some medical treatment. They just want the same kind that Al Qaeda gets!" After an unfriendly greeting from the American base, he travels into Cuba with his fellow travelers where they are treated to free health care, including treatments they were denied by the American system and simply could not afford.

The fundamental difference between the American HMOs and the universal systems offered elsewhere is that private organizations operate solely to obtain profits. The film offers a wide variety of truly upsetting horror stories involving HMOs, the darkest of which involves a former Humana employee who details how she received cash incentives for denying the highest number of treatments to the most patients. Conversely, Moore interviews a British doctor who happily discusses how he is paid better if he helps more people. It's Moore's hope that the American attitude will change and start to include medical treatment as a universal public service much in the way it runs systems ranging from the fire department to the public library at the moment. The sting of private businesses' greedy endeavors to make people's illness a into a cash service has gone too far.

Grade: A-

DVD of the Week: Black Snake Moan

Despite some early controversy, or perhaps because of it, Craig Brewer's latest slice of Southern Gothic cinema, Black Snake Moan, received a shrug of indifference at the box office when it opened in March. It's hard to blame the film, though, as it was launched in wide release as a "Samuel L. Jackson movie" despite its decidedly art house leanings, making it maybe a bit too mainstream for the indie crowds and a bit too artsy for the mainstream ones. The film details what's probably the most unconventional form of involuntary therapy: A religious man named Lazarus (Samuel L. Jackson) chains a self-destructive nymphomaniac named Ray to his radiator and demands that she find redemption and self worth before he releases her. It's not nearly as abusive or malicious as it may seem. Lazarus has authentically good natured intentions and however raw his treatment may be his results are positive. Ray and Lazarus bond over their past woes and come together in a friendship that might save both their lives.

A Mighty Heart

Michael Winterbottom has established himself as a monumentally eclectic film talent. Just last year he was behind the comedy farce Tristram Shandy and the political docudrama The Road to Guantanamo. This year his public profile has bounded off the charts with A Mighty Heart, an exquisitely intimate procedural drama detailing the events following the kidnapping of Wall Street Journal reported Daniel Pearl through the the eyes of his wife Mariane, played by Angelina Jolie. Shot on location in Karachi and featuring some of the actual places where Pearl did visit and stay in his real life, A Mighty Heart does its best to avoid exploitation by means of vivid and precise storytelling. The objective is to very clearly and explicitly convey all the minute details of the investigation with as close a connection the actual events as creatively possible. Thankfully, Winterbottom has scraped away all opportunities for melodrama and created something even more gripping: an intensely personal fly on the wall look at Mariane Pearl's experiences in Karachi absent of devices and weepy theatrics.

It's fitting for the film to be unwavering and exact as this is very much the way Pearl handled her life following her husband's well publicized kidnapping and eventual murder. For most of the film Jolie performs the role with the utmost integrity and honesty. She doesn't wallow in the grief of a lost husband. She shows us Pearl's pain but she also shows us her resolve. During the bulk of the investigation (prior to the anguishing moment when she realizes that her husband is dead) we see her cry just once. To do so she runs out into the garden of the house in Karachi where she and Daniel were staying and turns her back to the camera. When she is done she brushes her tears away and mutters to a child playing nearby "so silly...so silly." And then she does the most unbelievable of things. She smiles.

There's no really great way to explain the power of the movie. It plays more as a real life experience than a film and what it does most of all is intoxicate you with a drive and hope to find someone everyone knows will never come home alive. Winterbottom's handheld, purposefully imperfect stylization and his collection of authentic shooting locations give you such a sense of the time and place that it feels often as if it were documentary film making at work rather than narrative. And it's not just the transformation of Jolie that does the trick on the performance side either. She's surrounded by deeply committed and passionate actors including Archie Panjabi as friend and fellow journalist Asra, Irfan Khan as the head of search mission in Pakistan, and Dan Futterman as Daniel Pearl.

There's such an amazing strength and agony at work here. Every scene is a false hope or a new disappointment. It's a story that almost everyone has lived through once before but here it is delivered as a deeply specific cinematic journey as told by the people who were actually involved. It's as tragic as ever, but coupled with a certainty, as spoken by Mariane herself, that Daniel Pearl was not the only victim of militant groups and would not be the last. It's so urgently his story, but there's a rich sense of complexity here that encompasses the unreal complications in trying to settle conflict between entities of opposing ideals.

Grade: A

You Kill Me

You Kill Me is a black comedy that confuses dark wit with banal cruelty. The usually superb Ben Kingsley strikes out for the first time in years with an ill-conceived performance as Polish mafia assassin Frank Falenczyk who is sent to AA after one drunken night causes him to sleep through an important assignment. Kingsley's take on what I think is supposed to be a Polish accent just comes off as a persistent cotton-in-mouth mumble. His blank face and fidgety body language are more Rain Man than hitman. You can sense a minor stirring of emotion in his eyes, but the character is so flat and boneheaded that it doesn't seem to matter.

The movie is trying to reinvent the felonious wheel, so to speak. Instead of creating a character rooted in authentic complication, torn apart by drinking and killing, Frank is mostly just a big goof with a gun. He says he doesn't mind killing people, but he does regret killing them badly because of his shaky reflexes under the influence. Somehow we're just supposed to accept the cartoon deep Frank as a lovable, neighborhood murderer. It's wrong then that the main joke of the film is the way people treat him no matter how terrible he seems. When he confesses to his AA sponsor Tom (Luke Wilson) and new girlfriend Laurel (Téa Leoni) what he does for a living they both rally behind him saying things like "I know if you focus, you can slit that guy's throat!" Are we supposed to like Frank? Fear Frank? Wonder why no one cares that he kills people? Or just laugh because it's funny that they don't? Tone is life or death when juggling bloody murder and screwball comedy and this movie never really locks on to a steady pacing or narrative direction. It's just a smattering of off the wall comedy gags in which its creators want us to laugh at randomly violent and often very mean devices. Everyone in this filmed is boiled down to such a thin, unorginal stereotype. Frank goes to an Irish wake where everyone is partying and drinking up a storm. Then he goes to his addiction meetings where everyone vapidly expresses cliché lines like "I eat too much because I feel so empty inside." Their confessions are an awkward shade of arch, just enough that when we see people snoring in the front row and watch Frank roll his eyes we're not sure if we should be laughing or cringing at the weird lack of respect.

That's the basic problem here. The film's intentions are never clear and it's frantic style hopping from gang wars to first dates makes it an exercise in mixed messages. The only thing in the film that pops is Leoni whose patter with Kingsley actually buzzes the air around this inert comedy just a bit. She's just about the only character whose dryness passes for wit rather than ineptitude and she acts out of a believable desperation. Her romantic history is only teased in certain comic moments, but there's at least some sense that she's got an excuse for all this somehow. Her pain gives her an actual motivation to cling to the less than perfect Frank whereas everyone else seems just haplessly along for the ride.

Even my deep appreciation for the black arts of comedy couldn't make me love this half-baked hitman with a heart flick. It has a perpetually sour tone and more annoying tics than authentic dark resonance.

Grade: C-

Trailers: Margot at the Wedding

Noah Baumbach is pretty much one of my favorite working directors. He made the quintessential indie flick of 2005: The Squid and the Whale. Now he's back with one of the films I'm most looking forward to this fall: Margot at the Wedding. The immeasurably talented but very often stiff and miscast Nicole Kidman looks like she could have her first truly unglamorous film role in years as the cynical, fussy Margot who disapproves of her sister (Jennifer Jason Leigh) marrying someone she considers beneath her (Jack Black). Just about everything Baumbach does has charm, humor, and powerfully subtle drama at its core and there's really no denying that this film looks as though it should stand up beside his other work. The trailer also makes smooth use of the Phantom Planet rendition of "Our House" originally recorded for the overlooked cult indie The Chumscrubber (look it up people!).

Trailer

http://youtube.com/watch?v=_NQobRrZhvo

1408

Hotels and Stephen King have a long history together. It's impossible to see 1408, the latest in a long line of big screen King adaptations, without at least once thinking back to room 237 (the mystical creeper of a setting for one of the most chilling scenes in Stanley Kubrick's horror classic The Shining). It's true that Kubrick probably crafted a more unnerving piece of film with just a few minutes in 237 than director Mikael Håfström does here with a feature length stay in 1408, but that's not to say this movie doesn't offer its fair share of good scares. 1408 is a wonderfully moody and suspenseful throwback to old horror movies such as The Shining and even if it doesn't stand up to classics of that stature, it certainly blows the recent ugly, unscary torture porn trend (think Saw and Hostel) right out of the water.

Michael Enslin (John Cusack) is an intelligent, quick-witted cynic who makes a living writing cheap horror anthologies about his overnight visits to various haunted locations. The problem is that Enslin has never actually encountered anything supernatural and his books, though they describe the creepy histories of each place, are marked with a certain skepticism about the validity of the paranormal. It's a crisis of both career and conscience as Mike confesses to no faith in anything beyond the visible world, God included. It's a belief that takes on greater, more tragic significance as we delve into his history. Once inside 1408, Enslin is not just subject to "ghoulies and ghosties" as he puts it. He is forced instead to come face to face with the deepest recesses of his mind, sort of a spiritual trial by fire, and it strikes more terror in his heart than any mere beast or demon ever could.

One of the great things about this film is that Mike Enslin is actually intelligent. He doesn't panic and squeal and make remarkably stupid survival choices. At first he's purely cynical about the mysterious happenings in his room (radios going off on their own, mints appearing on pillows as if by magic maids, etc.), but as the slow burn frights escalate he embraces their reality and devises various competent plans to beat the room at its own game. It's actually a very character driven film with the troubled author battling his inner demons through his battles with the paranormal inhabitants of 1408. Best of all, Cusack is in top form here. He plays Enslin with both a playfulness and a sorrow. He's a brash adventurer on the surface, but there is also a palpable desperation beneath his facade. Cusack also does really well playing off nothing butt the four walls around him. He spends much of the film going through various stages of terror all alone in 1408, a challenge that could lead to a dud performance, but here leads to an engrossingly powerful solo show. Cusack breaks down the character layer by layer from his cocky entrance all the way through to the broken shell he becomes as times goes on and hope wears thin.

The movie works much better in its earlier stages when the chills are small but powerful. As it draws to a close, the room has taken dire measures and some of the more outlandish scares don't play as well as the simple spontaneously playing radio that kicks off this series of unfortunate events. Ultimately, though, this is a movie about Mike Enslin and though you could measure the film scare by scare and come up maybe a little bit short, it works well in the overall sense. We actually get to see the transformation of this character and experience what drives him through the hell of 1408 and what he's willing to do to check out. There's nothing more satisfying to me that a horror film as spooky as it is rich with drama. This is a rare instance where you get just enough of both to make the experience worth your while.

Grade: B

Trailers: Rocket Science

Due to open in limited release on August 10th, Rocket Science seems determined to follow in the footsteps of Little Miss Sunshine as this year's "little movie that could" (it even says so in its trailer). Whether or not it's as charming and wonderful as Sunshine remains to be seen, but the trailer suggest it could certainly prove to be one of the summer's sleeper comedy hits. The story follows a bunch of less than stellar students during the time leading up to the big school debate. Jeffrey Blitz, director of the Oscar nominated spelling bee documentary Spellbound, wrote and directed the film which covers similar yet fictional circumstances.

Trailer
http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809423366/video/3035444/

Black Sheep

As soon as the poster for Black Sheep was released bearing the slogan "There are 40 million sheep in New Zealand and they're pissed off!" it seemed clear that it would be yet another silly horror spoof. The strange thing is that it's actually much more self-serious than it seems. It doesn't wink or nudge like other horror comedies. It doesn't even slyly deadpan it's clunky lines and familiar scares. It mostly just follows the model established by creature features of the past. From the vaguely ominous, pulsing score to the dark rooms viewed from the shaky perspective of some thing lurking in the shadows, it's all pretty much what you've seen before. Even the basic setup comes from the good old book o' horror cliches. We meet a young kid who suffers some childhood trauma and then we flash to the future as he returns home for the first time in his adult life, unaware that he'll have to come face to face with the demons of his past. The catch is that instead of Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger, the Bogeyman, or even Gremlins, the demons of his past are the sheep from his childhood farm. Then there's some sci-fi mumbo jumbo genetic experiment and suddenly the herd is hungry for flesh. You get the picture. It's all very goofy but the delivery is very direct, making some great comedy from things as ludicrous as sheep fear but also keeping the film very much in the tradition of basic horror. This should probably be categorized as an unorthodox horror film instead of a horror comedy. The creators clearly knew they were being cheeky by selecting such fluffy villains but their straightforward strategy plays by the rules more than it mocks them. And even if meticulously replicating the traditional horror formula is one of the film's means of genre satire, it still makes the movie tedious in parts, particularly during the pre-infection introductory scenes.

The biggest surprise is that somehow the sheep are actually kind of creepy. You'd think it would be a total laugh to see them on the offensive, but they do inspire unexpected chills. Kudos to the makeup and effects crew for turning the barnyard's most adorable animals into bonafide horrors. When the ravenous flock finally makes its move, the movie comes alive with goofy frights. Sadly, the characters are such flat drones that their lives carry no real value. Again there is a sense that their vacuous dialogue is meant to mimic that of the annoying horror victims of years passed, but it's never funny enough to make us forgive Black Sheep for forcing its own one-note whiners upon us. The aforementioned lead protagonist Henry, (Nathan Meister) who fears sheep even before they turn into mutant killers, is mostly just frantic and frustrating. The fun of this movie is in the outlandish sheep encounters. Elsewhere, the characters merely sputter dialogue I couldn't care less about. The primary culprit being Experience, (Danielle Mason) an awfully written environmentalist character who thinks that pointing on the contribution of sheep farting to the Greenhouse Effect makes her worldly. I can't tell if she's meant to mock environmentalists or simply there to try to balance out the science wary tone of the film's central dilemma. The scientists responsible for making the sheep into killers look and act absolutely crazy, so maybe by making their greatest rival amongst the characters bonkers, it saves writer/director Jonathan King from having to declare a side on the issue. It wouldn't have mattered anyway. There is so much lunacy here that no deeper message could ever have emerged. Eventually the loony scientists cook up a new mutant race of sheep people and what perhaps was a tiny stab at a Frankenstein-ish critique of overreaching science just becomes the dumbest plot device ever.

The one thing that almost saves this movie is that the sheep attacks actually work. They're silly and fun but they also pack more bite than most modern horror massacres. Being able to laugh and cringe at the same time is quite a unique pleasure. I wish the rest of the movie had the same level of wild imagination as the man vs. sheep showdowns. By film's end, the characters have only become more obnoxious, the thin narrative has been stretched to accommodate bizarre and unfunny levels of gross out gore, and the camp appeal of a sheep with bloodstained chompers has ended.

Grade: C+

Trailers: 3:10 to Yuma

The western doesn't often play well in the modern media world (last year's stunning Aussie entry The Proposition is perhaps the sole recent exception to the rule), but nonetheless Walk the Line director James Mangold is trying to once again breathe life into the genre with 3:10 to Yuma (a remake of a 1950s film). Russell Crowe stars as Ben Wade, a particularly ruthless outlaw who has been captured and is awaiting the train that will take him to his court hearing in Yuma. Christian Bale plays the rancher who has agreed to escort him. Obviously things don't go as smoothly as planned and Wade's crew makes every effort to spring their boss loose from the authorities before he gets aboard the 3:10 train. The film opens October 5th.

Trailer
http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809781728/video/3053783/standardformat

Trailers: Michael Clayton

Screenwriter Tony Gilroy has a reputation for crafting sophisticated and intelligent thrillers. He's the primary screenplay adapter for the Ludlum inspired Jasorn Bourne series and in addition to penning the script for the upcoming sequel The Bourne Ultimatum, he also makes his directorial debut this year with Michael Clayton. The movie is said to be a legal thriller starring George Clooney as a cutthroat corporate attorney trying to silence a guilt ridden executive (Tom Wilkinson) who threatens to compromise a multimillion-dollar case. Tilda Swinton and Syndey Pollack round out the cast. It opens September 28th.

Trailer
http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809423158/video/3095320/standardformat

Ocean's Thirteen

Steven Soderbergh is possibly Hollywood's best example of the on the rise "one for us, one for them" mentality used to describe artists who balance box office fodder with more artistic work. In between churning out these popcorn chomping friendly sequels to his original remake of Ocean's Eleven, he delivers some of the most audacious film work on the indie scene. Most recently, he gave us the small town murder mystery masterpiece Bubble and last year's inventive and overlooked nostalgic Third Man/Casablanca smash up The Good German. Now he's back to cheeky heist games with Ocean's Thirteen, the follow up to his own self-confessed dud sequel Ocean's Twelve. While all the slapstick and no brainers in this third go round still make this franchise feel more like a recreational activity for Soderbergh and his megastar cast than an actual series of cohesive features, this one easily exceeds the hapless, unfunny, and bafflingly loopy antics he pulled the last time around.

The plot here (yes, they do have one this time) centers on Elliot Gould's character Reuben getting double crossed on a big casino deal by old friend Willie Bank (Al Pacino) and the revenge mission that follows. Danny Ocean (George Clooney) begins plotting ways to get back at Bank for his mistreatment of Reuben and soon he has the whole gang involved including, among many others, Matt Damon as Linus, Brad Pitt as Rusty, and Don Cheadle as Basher. Ellen Barkin also joins the cast as Abigail Sponder, the primo assistant to Bank and gateway to a certain stash of desirable merchandise. It's one of the great absurdities in the film that with a cast this vast and talented most everyone just plays it cool and mildly silly. It's perhaps the most casual collection of performances you'll see in any film anywhere, but the likable leads thankfully play it straight with ease enough to keep their mild performances breezy and undistracting.

This is a far less convoluted and reflexive romp than Ocean's Twelve and while it's hard to really gush over something so slight (even if it's purposely so), I will say that Soderbergh and his cast execute this slick, stylish thriller extremely well, with just enough goofiness to keep the laughs coming but the story relevant (a vital flaw for Twelve). It won't bowl you over, but it's a definite good time.

Grade: B

DVD of the Week: Bridge to Terabithia

Believe it or not, this kid flick is actually the best new film hitting shelves on DVD this week. Ads for the film misrepresented it as a Lord of the Rings for tiny tykes, but actually it's a mature, coming of age tale about two young loners (played by talented child actors Josh Hutcherson and AnnaSophia Robb) who imagine a magical world for themselves called Terabithia in which they are royal warriors battling mystical creatures. These imagined battle scenes were basically all trailers for the film ever showed, but they actually make up a very minute segment of the film. The bulk of the narrative is dedicated to a level-headed account of the everday lives of these kids. I'm actually not sure the film would even entertain small children, and in the end, it might prove too dark and complex for very young eyes. It's actually a realistic portrayal of the end of innocence in the characters' lives that invites audiences to both grieve their losses and celebrate the future possibilities for their adult lives. Also very much worth mentioning is Zooey Deschanel who gives a warm, charming performance as a music teacher who sympathizes with the unpopular students in her class.

Trailers: No Country For Old Men

The time for the Coen Bros. to return to glory has finally come. Cannes flipped for this thriller (an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's novel of the same name) when it premiered at the festival recently and though it missed its chance at the Palm d'Or, it still left a winner of vast admiration. The Coens, a duo who made their mark with masterpieces such as Fargo (a personal favorite of mine), have slipped into near oblivion as of late with tepid comedies such as The Ladykillers and Intolerable Cruelty. No Country for Old Men has been hyped as a return to the twisted Americana tales that made the brothers film legends in the first place and it looks like it could be their first great film of the new millennium. The main narrative focuses on Javier Bardem as a ruthless vigilante with Tommy Lee Jones playing his pursuer. The release date is currently set for November 9th.

Trailer
http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid987390441/bclid1021004993/bctid987200355

Trailers: There Will Be Blood

It's here! The first teaser-trailer for Paul Thomas Anderson's There Will Be Blood has made its way online. Anderson is best known for directing a string of incomparable indie epics that rank relatively high on my list of favorite films, particularly 1999's Network inspired Aimee Mann sing-a-long/rain of toads melodrama Magnolia. He's been AWOL since directing 2002's Adam Sandler tragicomedy Punch-Drunk Love, but if the new footage from his latest is any indication it was well worth the wait. There Will Be Blood stars Daniel Day-Lewis as Daniel Plainview, a man who strikes it rich when he hits oil in early 20th century Texas. The film gets its inspiration from the Upton Sinclair novel Oil! and is due to hit theaters on November 21st.

Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYW2ltW5SPo

News: IndieCliché.com On Facebook

For anyone who uses Facebook, (http://www.facebook.com/) there's now a group there dedicated to IndieCliché.com. I recommend registering primarily because it'll give you a chance to receive up to the minute news and updates on the site and talk to other IndieCliché.com readers. Plus, it makes me feel good. It's an open, global group meaning you can invite as many friends of your own as you like and help spread arund this dog and pony blog. Just search "indie cliche" and it should pop up. The group is called "I am an Indie Cliché (Are You One Too?)". If there are any problems, e-mail me.

Thanks to all,

Pete

Eagle vs. Shark

There's probably no middle ground when it comes Taiki Waititi's Eagle vs. Shark. You'll either flip for the actors' droll line readings and the all around quirky cuteness or simply groan from moment one onward. (Best check out the trailer linked here to gage your interest.) The movie's been compared to Napoleon Dynamite for the reasons I mentioned above, but unlike Napoleon, who was a one note character buried behind his irrational tics, the characters in this film are childishly sweet, admittedly odd, probably a bit emotionally stunted, but still deeply sympathetic. Their tics, at times frustrating, don't hide who they really are or eradicate any feasible sense of humanity in them. They define who they are and give us a gateway into each of their lonely worlds respectively.

Loren Horsley gives a radiant performance as Lily, a shy fast food employee whose socially awkward tendencies only make her more excruciatingly adorable. Horsley squishes her face with nervousness and deadpans just about ever line, but it's with her wonderfully expressive eyes that she delivers the deepest of her character's joys and sorrows. On the surface she's a twerpy cliché, but Horsley actually finds a way to make Lily into a soulful loner, tics and all. The desperate Lily pines mercilessly after a hilariously silly video game store clerk named Jarrod (Jemaine Clement) who probably has the most Napoleon Dynamite-ish persona in the film. It's a great relief then to find that Clement and Waititi found a brilliant way to make the insensitive and agitating Jarrod really click with the film. He's as annoying as Napoleon but he's got the kind of dramatically satisfying material to give his strangeness unexpected depth. When he stamps his foot on the floor after doing something stupid and proclaims "I'm so complicated!" it's funny, pig headed, utterly false, but weirdly tragic too. He's the sort of person you need to get to know to understand and the film follows the process of Lily getting to know him, letting us get to know him as well.

Lily and Jarrod make perhaps the silliest screen couple of the decade and yet you root for them unconditionally. Waititi's vision is so fluid and complete that whether you like his world of misfits or not, you must admit he knows how to define a style and a tone absolutely. The film develops its own strange rhythms and Waititi brings together performance, narrative, cartoon effects, a killer soundtrack (courtesy of The Phoenix Foundation), and just about ever other possible element of film to shape a truly unique (bone-headed Dynamite comparisons aside) vision. This is a masterwork of awkwardness that delivers on every level. It's the grandest of indie clichés: a small film with heart, originality, and quirk to spare.

Grade: A

Fido

Fido is an imaginative horror comedy from director Andrew Currie in which zombies serve as house pets and manual laborers in a "Leave it to Beaver" type ideal suburban community called Willard. It seems that in an alternate 1950s, earth was bombarded by radioactive particles, causing the dead to rise from their graves and leading to the Zombie War between humans and those trying to eat their flesh. Scientists were able to create anti-zombie security systems and eventually perfected an electronic collar that could fully suppress the zombies' desire to eat people. These newly domesticated zombies were then put to use as butlers, gardeners, and servants in other capacities. Now all the homemakers in 1950s suburbia walk around smiling happily with their very own zombie in tow (every respectable family has one). It's a clever, truly bizarre concept that lends itself nicely to the parody of everything from trophy wives to class culture, American defense politics to crisis capitalism. In fact, my only really complaint here is that it strives to do too much too rapidly. The film is such a jumble of different genres and satirical targets that it's hard to find a real through-line that might solidify an intention beyond silliness. As it is, it's still a funny from start to finish comedy with miraculously original gags, but there's clearly a missed opportunity to really sharpen the edges of the film and create a more cutthroat national send up a la Thank You For Smoking. Instead we get something fun, but actually quite unserviceable. It lobs softballs when it should be throwing daggers.

The more specific events of the story focus on a particular family, the generically named Robinsons, who are the very last people on their block to get a zombie of their own. Mrs. Robinson (Carrie Anne-Moss) could no longer handle the shame of being the only wife on the block who couldn't brag about her zombie and bought one against the orders of her husband. Mr. Robinson, (Dylan Baker) the family's shrewish patriarch, is more than a little bit skeptical about the safety of having a zombie in the house. It turns out that his bullying accusations actually hold some water when the family zombie, Fido, (Billy Connolly) has a collar malfunction and eats one of the neighbors while playing fetch in the park. The littlest Robinson, social outcast Timmy, (K'Sun Ray) grows much too attached to Fido to confess his bad behavior, though. With his preoccupied father ignoring him, his superficial mother putting him down, and all his classmates ganging up on him, Fido becomes Timmy's only friend. Besides, no one really liked Mrs. Henderson.

Of course, the problem is that Mrs. Henderson later rises from the dead and begins killing people which inevitably restarts the zombie threat. There's really not a whole lot of suspense at work here, though. The zombies are purely comic devices and they do their job pretty well. By film's end, the movie has kind of devolved into a more aimless, horror prototype, but it's a lot of fun while it lasts. It's vicious wit is elevated by great deadpan performances by the talented cast and Currie and Co. really deliver a riotous screenplay full of big laughs and light commentary that whiz by almost too efficiently. Plus, any movie where a government official can very intensely and very seriously ask a class of school children "So, who here has killed a zombie?" is pretty much OK by me.

Grade: B

Pierrepoint - The Last Hangman

Pierrepoint - The Last Hangman tells the story of average joe executioner Albert Pierrepoint (Timothy Spall) who is considered to be one of Britain's most famous career hangmen. Pierrepoint is credited with hanging more than 608 people during a timespan of nearly twenty years (ending in the mid 1950s, a decade or so before the outlawing of capital punishment). He also very famously set records for the fastest execution ever and developed a reputation for being the most diligent worker in his field. This film version of his life is a somewhat rigid but beautifully filmed and performed inspection of Pierrepoint's life and the workings of his psyche.

The crux of the film is its chilling depictions of the contrast between Pierrepoint's life as a husband and neighbor and the brutality of his morbid profession. He walks sweetly through his days living a life unlike anyone else's. He's a respected member of the community and a well-liked friend to many. Then on certain days he's called away to work his other job in which he unflinchingly hangs convicted criminals. It's a film about Pierrepoint specifically, but it also more generally poses the question: what does someone in this line of work think and feel? Pierrepoint's place as one of history's most notable government endorsed deliverers of death makes him a top choice to inspect for clues of the psychological processes of these workers. Throughout the film we see executioners working with different levels of hesitation and remorse but Pierrepoint is stoic and unapologetic without fail. His steely gaze in the face of such hideous circumstances is both eerie and fascinating and uncovering its secrets makes for the best dramatic material in the film. Primarily, Pierrepoint sees himself as merely a facilitator of a government decision. He is not killing these people. The government has already done that. He's just a cog in the machine that gets things done. His conscience is clear and even more interestingly, he bears no sense of judgement for the people he hangs. He does not want to hear the horrible things that they've done and be reassured that they are due this punishment. He simply wants to clock in, do his job, and clock out without complication.

The death as part of the daily grind story makes this riveting up until only a point, though. If the film has a flaw it's that it too efficiently establishes the complex inner workings of Albert Pierrepoint and finds itself stuffing the story with tangents about the hanging of Nazi officers and the burgeoning protests against capital punishment in England. Thankfully, Timothy Spall chews through every subplot with true delicacy and captivating stoicism. It's one of the strongest performances by an actor I've seen anywhere this year and like all the best performances it's a truly understated and hauntingly sincere piece of work. Spall discovers ways to make Pierrepoint both lovable and utterly intimidating. He's a likable fool in the pub and a nearly unrecognizable menace at the gallows.

The film never quite spins a cohesive narrative thread, but Spall's nuanced performance and the subtly chilling dialogue between Pierrepoint and the outside world make this a remarkable movie. It's not a perfect film, but it renders its subject in such an emotionally complex light that it can be forgiven its woes.

Grade: B

DVD of the Week: Breach

Breach is a solid, methodically paced thriller boosted tremendously by the work of Chris Cooper who actually gives one of his best performances ever here, making an otherwise mediocre film wildly notable. Cooper stars as Robert Hanssen, a known FBI traitor based on an actual agent who sold government secrets for decades. Ryan Phillippe is competent enough as the rookie agent tapped by the bureau (in the form of a handler played by the always magnificent Laura Linney) to pose as an underling and find hard evidence to convict Hanssen. The plot has a certain inevitability to it, but the performances and writing are strong enough to really elevate this to the level of a quality thriller.

Trailers: Hannah Takes The Stairs

This is what happens when indie gods collide. They make awesomely awesome movies. I can't boast about this film just yet since I haven't seen it, but I'm almost certain I'll be talking about it long after I do. Andrew Bujalski, a man who mastered the art of nothingness with his films Funny Ha Ha and Mutual Appreciation, stars along with Mark Duplass, star and co-writer of The Puffy Chair, in this new film from their buddy Joe Swanberg (director of Kissing on the Mouth and LOL), a new talent being added to this millennial indie auteur social club. Mutual Appreciation and The Puffy Chair were two of my favorite films in 2006 and Hannah Takes The Stairs looks like it will continue in the tradition of those films with an offbeat, true to life look at a simple situation. The film is said to be a collaboration in the truest sense of the word with each of the major cast members being given credit for helping to shape the script. If there's a more exciting indie scene at the moment, I honestly don't know what it is. These guys top my list of people to watch out for in the future. Here Bujalski plays one of two potential office romances for Hannah (principal co-writer Greta Gerwig). Fellow co-writer Kent Osborne plays the third member of their little love triangle. The movie opens in limited release beginning August 22nd.

Trailer (and additional info)
http://www.hannahtakesthestairs.com

Chalk

In the tradition of Christopher Guest’s zany mockumentaries (chiefly Best In Show), Chalk tells the story of several sweet yet vaguely inept high school teachers during a particular year early in each of their professional careers. Mr. Lowry (Troy Schremmer) has just changed careers after bottoming out in the business world. He’s greeted warmly by his fellow teachers, but given a painfully chilly reception by the students in his first class who deny him any participation beyond a cruel prodding of his lack of experience. Bossy PE teacher Coach Webb (Janelle Schremmer) fairs far better with the kids but this year must face new and unexpected tension with close friend Mrs. Reddell (Shannon Haragan) who was unexpectedly promoted to Assistant Principal and has now become too busy for happy hour at their favorite bar. Then there’s Mr. Stroope (Chris Mass) who just wants to win the “Teacher of the Year” and who’ll do anything to accomplish his goal.

The film has a remarkable talent for shaping very driven scenes disguised as meandering nonsense. It takes a simple lunch table scene shared between faculty and as they prattle on about funny happenings, we get to see who’s making eyes at who, who talks more sternly to who, who doesn’t fit in, and who takes charge of the group. There’s a keen eye on the dynamics of the school community and a very believable crafting of its many strained professional and personal relationships. The students are admittedly colored more broadly than the staff, but there’s still no real disrespect on the behalf of the production. Its objective is clearly to place the viewer in the awkwardly funny position of the poorly treated and often outright abused teachers, but there are as many warm and sensible kids in the crowd as there are brash troublemakers. At times, there truly are very moving bright moments where teachers and students connect in a wonderfully small silly, unsentimental sort of way. Other times are sadly marred with over the top goofiness. There’s a very weird line being drawn here between realistic whimsy and blatantly ridiculous farce. It’s clear to me the film benefits from taking the realistic approach to these situations, but every so often it steps over the edge and falls into a disjointing stupidity. Regardless, this is still a sweet comedy with strong characters and some great, subdued laughs.

Grade: B

Trailers: The Ten

The Ten is a downright bonkers new comedy from Wet Hot American Summer director David Wain and Diggers scribe Ken Marino. The duo tackle all ten of the little buggers handed down to Moses in various comedy vignettes depicting the consequences of disobeying each of the ten commandments. Among the segments is Winona Ryder flexing her self-deprecation muscle in a segment dedicated to "Thou Shalt Not Steal" involving a dummy love interest. The rest of the impressive cast list reads like this: Paul Rudd, Liev Schreiber, Adam Brody, Gretchen Mol, Famke Janssen, Rob Corddry, Jessica Alba, Oliver Platt, Justin Theroux, and more. The film hits theaters August 3rd.

Trailer (unrated)
http://www.thetenmovie.com

La Vie En Rose

La Vie en Rose is a magnificently realized depiction of the complicated and often tragic life of French singer Edith Piaf. It opens in the middle of her life and then returns to her childhood, continuing in couplets detailing the past of her youth and the present of her final years and playing catch up scene by scene until the two timelines merge together and ultimately evolve into a swirl of memories recapping her life with no concern for forming a clear chain of events. If there’s a critique for this film it’s in its ambiguous, atmospheric delivery which makes the point by point events of Piaf’s life a little unclear but also rescues it from the doldrums of the often stiff biopic genre. It’s an involving, intriguing smattering of memories that play beautifully when coupled with Piaf’s “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien” (“No Regrets”) which serves as the film’s final musical testament to Piaf’s remarkable talents.

The music in the film primarily uses Piaf’s own captivating voice, a respectable choice given its capacity to instantaneously convince the audience of her greatness. Actress Marion Cotillard, who made an unremarkable English language film debut with last year’s hideous Ridley Scott fluff piece A Good Year, does much more than merely lip-sync to Piaf’s voice, though. She gives one of the most miraculously complete performances of this or any other year. She plays Piaf from her young years as a street singer through to her death as a world renowned performer and the physicality of her performance playing Edith in each different generation is so dramatically different and utterly convincing that I thought for more than half the film the part was being played by two different women. There’s some help from makeup and other cosmetics to sell us on the age acceleration, but primarily the magic comes from Cotillard’s masterful use of her face and posture to satisfyingly play the same woman over the course of many years. It’s a feat as striking as any in acting to disappear utterly and completely into a character and Cotillard is honestly unrecognizable here. She accentuates her dark soulful eyes and applies Piaf’s penciled on eyebrows with such natural, unaffected simplicity that it’s as though Piaf were playing the part herself. It doesn’t for a minute feel like an actress giving a wonderful performance. It feels like you’re watching the genuine article. I dare anyone to find a single frame of falseness in Cotillard’s work here. Piaf’s many quirks, her joy and rage, all emerge so naturally from Cotillard. It’s a wonder to behold. To call it “Oscar-worthy” seems a bit too pedestrian a measurement. It goes beyond entitlement to accolades. It’s pure artistry.

The film truly thrives on Cotillard to elevate it into greatness. As a narrative it can be sloppy and sometimes stutters on its own never ending stream of sad tales to tell. I’ve hardly ever seen a biopic that couldn’t have used some more decisive editing and this one is no exception. That being said, it’s still a thrilling, heartbreaking look at a very fascinating woman. It revives Piaf’s music and legacy by paying tribute to her without overselling her glory. Behind the staggering voice was a little woman with prickly habits and ample eccentricities. Her voice is the film’s muse but her flaws are it’s truest material. The movie is an elegant tribute to her musical gifts, but also a low key, warts and all exposé on her life offstage. Together the two sides form a splendid portrait of the late great Piaf without overstating her importance or her misfortune.

Grade: A-

Knocked Up

Just about once every decade a particular voice in comedy redefines the formula used to score familiarity points with an audience. In 1998, the Farrelly Bros. “gelled” Cameron Diaz’s hair and made way for an onslaught of doe-eyed dopey gross out comedies. In 2005, it was Judd Apatow and the now infamous chest waxing of a dorky Steve Carell. Setting aside the common fascination with uncomfortable body functions, it’s safe to say Apatow’s brand of homey, raunchy manchild with a heart of gold comedy is a whole different breed of film and it’s the leading influence on the world of big screen laughs in years. Losers everywhere are owning up to responsibilities and scoring with unfathomably more attractive women. This summer alone we’ll see the format repeated with The Brothers Solomon and the Apatow produced Superbad. The very best part of Apatow’s theatrical coming of age is that he’s a more talented and sincere filmmaker than many of cinema’s previous comedy trendsetters. Just as the world sighed a sad sigh at the sight of endless broad comedies and flat sequels to come, Apatow has swooped in and injected the genre with a shot of realism and an effortlessly appealing goofy sweetness. The guy's got a knack for writing films with all the drunken, macho stupidity needed to make mass audiences laugh and the kind of subtle, endearing drama that no one would ever expect from movies like these. Like it or not, the stoner comedy just became a viable art form.

The stoner in question here is Ben Stone (“Freaks & Geeks” alum Seth Rogen) who spends the bulk of his days watching R-rated movies with his friends and programming the precise times at which famous actresses can be seen naked into his up and coming website FleshOftheStars.com. His friends are played by a crew of Apatow faves from previous projects all of which use their own names for their character names which continually blurs the line between performance and spontaneous antics. The lineup consists of “Freaks & Geeks” stars Jason Segel and Martin Starr along with Jay Baruchel of “Undeclared” and Jonah Hill who made a cameo appearance in The 40 Year Old-Virgin. One night this motley crew of slackers heads out to a nearby club where Alison Scott (Katherine Heigl of “Grey’s Anatomy) is celebrating a recent promotion from E! Network intern to on-air talent. The bodacious blonde makes an unexpected connection with the funny, laid-back Ben and ends up drunkenly stumbling through a regrettable one night stand. Cut to 8 weeks later when Alison finds herself vomiting profusely during a James Franco interview and begins to consider the possibility that she’s pregnant. After checking and rechecking with every brand of home pregnancy test known to man, Alison accepts her fate and confronts Ben about the situation. It’s a meeting off two very different minds – she’s a responsible rising professional and he’s a happy-go-lucky putterer whose greatest challenge in life is refereeing intense matches of beer pong – but together they decide to have the baby and attempt to share a genuine relationship with one another.

As far as situational comedy goes, it’s a relatively safe setup, but Apatow dives so energetically into the material that it feels as wide reaching and original as the most elaborately conceived concept film. It’s nothing like the paint by numbers comedies we’re used to where you can kind of foresee what’s coming next by remembering back to familiar episodes of “Everybody Loves Raymond.” In the film, Apatow takes “Raymond” and every other emotionally flat piece of comedy to task for the way in which they desensitize their characters. No one ever really gets hurt in the world of sitcoms. Characters behave badly and get mad at each other but it all comes with such timed, rapid fire delivery that the basic frustrations of family life get dissolved as soon as the laugh track sounds. Knocked Up is not just one of the funniest films I’ve seen all year. It also cracks the American comedy wide open and messes around with its innards. It exposes an embarrassing awkwardness at the heart of the most well-intentioned actions and a deeply felt silliness to the most melodramatic moments of our lives. All sides of the situation are covered with integrity and hilarity from Ben’s fears of inadequacy all the way down through Alison’s worries about whether or not Ben is anything more to her than just an accidental baby daddy. Neither character is really right or wrong, good or bad. They’re just conflicting elements in a very messy situation in which no outcome can be easy. Rarely do mainstream comedies realize a situation this fully or consider their characters so carefully. It’s my greatest hope that more and more commercial studios take notice of the quality standard Apatow has established and start producing comedies even a fraction as masterful as this one.

Grade: A

Trailers: Interview

As an actor, Steve Buscemi has acquired a fair amount of fame for his offbeat performances. His career as a director, though, is very much under the radar at the moment. Most people don't know it, but over the past 15 years he's proven himself to be more than capable behind the camera with three masterful, low-key indies, Trees Lounge, Animal Factory, and Lonsome Jim. All three capture very unglamorous lives soaked with the sort of sardonic melancholy Buscemi himself has brought to the screen in his best roles. Now he's at the helm of a fourth feature, which promises to be his most commercially available yet. Sienna Miller, a gossip column staple and bona fide big screen powerhouse by way of Factory Girl, takes the lead here in a role originated by Dutch starlet Katja Schuurman in the 2003 Theo van Gogh film of the same name that inspired this American update. She plays an actress of questionable talent and massive popularity who spends a night chatting openly and aggressively with an unconventional interviewer (in this version, played by Buscemi). It's always a big question mark when American directors start remaking the work of European artists, but my hunch is that Buscemi's talent for crafting gritty, independent mood films combined with his own personal experiences in the crass Hollywood scene will make this one really great. The film opens on July 13th.

Trailer:
http://www.ifilm.com/video/2860190

Trailers: The Brave One

I admit that I’m as fed up with the Jodie Foster revenge thriller (a film genre in itself) as I am with the Will Ferrell sports comedy or the Ashley Judd scorned woman procedural (something the actress has thankfully abandoned as of late). I’ve long thought that if Foster fights to protect one more daughter or seeks out one more killer she will be obliged to return her Oscar and confess sincerely to her loss of dignity. She made strides forward in last year’s Spike Lee heist film Inside Man (at least when compared to the downward spiral that was Flightplan), but since then she’s been awfully quiet. Now she’s back avenging a death and taking justice into her own hands in The Brave One, but I’m not quite ready to start the name calling process just yet. I’ll certainly reserve my right to point and mock and laugh, but I’m willing to let this one play out before I condemn. The Brave One stars foster as a woman coping with the death of her fiancé (“Lost” star Naveen Andrews) in a brutal, random mugging. Terrence Howard is the morally ambiguous detective uncertain of how to handle Foster’s dangerous vendetta. The accompanying cast is stellar, but the real reason I’m optimistic is that director Neil Jordan, who made his reputation with The Crying Game and reassured us of his vitality and talent with 2005’s grave yet flighty Breakfast On Pluto (a major milestone for actor Cillian Murphy), could very well deliver the sort of thriller Foster seems to have been chasing for the bulk of her career (or at least since starring in the all time classic thriller Silence of the Lambs). The trailer honestly seems like it could go either way, so I’ll have to wait and see. The film hits theaters on September 14th.

Trailer:

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1808721621/video/2902255/