Indie Cliché: August 2007

Friday, August 31, 2007

The Top 10 Indies of Summer 2007 (Part 1)

Summer months are best known for sequels, threequels, and blockbusters of all shapes and sizes. And even though there's no question that megahits such as Knocked Up and The Bourne Ultimatum were spectacular films (and perhaps may be remembered as some of the best of the year come December), it's a rare treat to highlight the little films between the big tent pole releases. So, without further ado, numbers 10 through 6 of my ten favorite indie releases of the Summer.

10. Waitress - It's a real joy to discover a film with great wit and heart, but finding one under these circumstances is bittersweet. Writer/director/actress Adrienne Shelly was very tragically murdered before this little gem, a dramatic comedy about a small town waitress (Keri Russell) in love with one man (Nathan Fillion) and pregnant with the child of another (Jeremy Sisto), even debuted at the Sundance film festival where it was splendidly received. Her legacy is a moving, darkly funny little sweetheart pie shop comedy that puts a one in a million spin on the numerous familiar romantic comedies that came before it.

9. La Vie en Rose - The life of famed French vocalist Edith Piaf is the inspiration for this visually stunning and splendidly acted feature from director Olivier Dahan. Marion Cotillard plays Piaf from her life as a teenager on the streets through to her death in a performance of unprecedented transformative prowess. She disappears completely into the body & soul of Piaf and should, at this early stage, be considered the frontrunner for this year's Best Actress trophies.

8. The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters - In light of numerous recent revelations that contend the veracity of this arcade gamer doc, it might be best to approach it as a brilliantly engrossing and contagiously funny comedy rather than an air-tight piece of documentary filmmaking. Accusations have been made against the filmmakers regarding potentially misleading factual omissions in the film. Subsequently, those involved in the production have more or less admitted that they edited the film with a specific narrative thread in mind, potentially excluding the more murky interpretations of the rivalry between classic gamer Billy Mitchell and newcomer Steve Wiebe. The brilliance here is really in the crafty story structure that keeps us fascinated with Billy and Steve's intense back and forth competition while simultaneously giving us a peek into the intriguing world of competitive arcade gaming.

7. Hannah Takes The Stairs - Director Joe Swanberg, operating under extreme low-budget circumstances, churns out yet another delightful, naturalistic dramedy about emotionally stunted, stubborn, and romantically entwined twentysomethings. The latest film in a trend that’s been deemed “mumblecore,” Hannah Takes The Stairs offers a fascinating, fly-on-the-wall look at the life of a complicated young woman (played with striking sincerity by Greta Gerwig) who stumbles quickly in and out of love with men.

6. Away from Her - Veteran screen actress Julie Christie shines in this heartbreaking debut feature from indie starlet turned writer/director Sarah Polley. Christie is absolutely radiant and irrefutably authentic as a woman suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Gordon Pinsent gives an equally impressive performance as her frustrated but eternally committed husband. He stands by his wife despite how distant she grows and how little of their life together she can remember. Its heartbreaking subject matter can make it difficult to watch at times but Away from Her is truly a character drama of the highest caliber.

Trailers: Eastern Promises (Trailer #2)

Take a look at the new, more revealing second trailer for David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises. In select theaters September 14th.

QuickTime High
http://www.focusfeatures.com/viewer.php?f=eastern_promises&c=trailer2&ext=mov&w=480&h=360

QuickTime Low
http://www.focusfeatures.com/viewer.php?f=eastern_promises&c=trailer2&ext=mov&w=320&h=240

Windows Media High
http://www.focusfeatures.com/viewer.php?f=eastern_promises&c=trailer2&ext=wmv&w=480&h=
360

Windows Media Low
http://www.focusfeatures.com/viewer.php?f=eastern_promises&c=trailer2&ext=wmv&w=320&h=240

Thursday, August 30, 2007

Trailers: Moving McAllister

Moving McAllister centers on Rick Robinson (Ben Gourley), a lowly intern at a prestigious Miami law firm who dreams of becoming a partner one day. Eager to impress, he agrees to help the firm’s top lawyer, Maxwell McAllister (Rutger Hauer), with a favor he really cannot afford. Just five days before the bar exam, Rick finds himself in charge of moving McAllister’s dearest possession across the country: his seductive, yet untouchable niece, Michelle (Mika Kunis). In a less-than-stellar moving van, the mismatched pair begins their cross-country journey. Along the way they encounter numerous obstacles and unforgettable characters, like free-spirited hitchhiker, Orlick Prescott Hope (Jon Heder), who, much to Rick’s dismay, manage to slow down the journey. Through the experience, Rick begins to realize that there’s more to life than becoming a successful lawyer. In select theaters September 14th.

TRAILER:
http://www.specialopsmedia.com/assets/FirstIndependent/MM/MMTrailer_With_Billing.zip

Death at a Funeral

When a family patriarch dies, his trustworthy son, Daniel (Matthew MacFadyen), is stuck with overseeing his funeral, delivering his eulogy, and keeping tabs on his dysfunctional family in an attempt to keep the day respectful at the very least. His brother, Robert (Rupert Graves), a famous writer, offers no assistance at all and serves only to dismay the attendees who’d hoped he’d deliver his father’s eulogy given that he’s the accomplished writer in the family. Bickering, bantering, shenanigans and all kinds of little mishaps transpire before a mysterious stranger emerges (Peter Dinklage) to drop a major bombshell on Daniel about the true character of his dearly beloved pa. Things turn from bad to worse. Hilarity ensues (well, sort of). And, of course, it all comes down to one schmaltzy motivational speech about how nobody’s perfect.

With Death at a Funeral, director Frank Oz bounces back modestly form his catastrophic, sideways reinterpretation of The Stepford Wives. Unfortunately, while it's a far less strikingly egregious film, Funeral is not all that much more enjoyable. It’s watchable, but wholly unspectacular. The setup is broad enough to be a serviceable, all encompassing introduction to all things hooey. The gimmicks are light and familiar enough to elicit chuckles but nothing nearing uproarious laughter. It’s sinfully complacent and worthy of no real praise other than to say that despite the banality, it is competently executed.

The uniformly decent but completely forgettable cast do nothing extra to raise the film beyond a meandering little trifle of a dark comedy. The only real standout here is Alan Tudyk as a tripping on hallucinogens future son-in-law to the family who spends most of the film staring at his hands and disturbing the peace in increasingly outrageous ways.

Grade: C

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Trailers: Grace Is Gone

One of the most talked about films at this year's Sundance film festival was this drama from writer/director James C. Strouse (writer of Lonesome Jim) starring the accomplished but altogether underrated John Cusack in what is already being considered his best shot at getting the all important Oscar nod that has wrongly eluded him throughout his career. Here he plays a doting dad who, upon discovering that his wife has died in Iraq, takes his two daughters on a spontaneous road trip to avoid revealing to them the horrible news. The film is due to open on October 5th.

Trailer

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809426672/video/3870405/

The King Of Kong: A Fistful Of Quarters

One of the summer’s most splendid, utterly enjoyable surprises is this arcade gamer documentary about hardcore competitive Donkey Kong players and the strange, intense subculture they occupy. Imagine a world where achieving a world record Donkey Kong score supersedes all other goals in the scale of importance, a world where a long-haired gamer prodigy named Billy Mitchell is elected as the makeshift messiah of the classic arcade game realm and very seriously delivers lines like “Whenever I say something, it’s controversial. It’s a lot like the abortion issue” straight-faced into the camera. Such is the world of The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, a fun and very funny feature from director Seth Gordon that plays an awful lot like a narrative comedy for something based on actual people. Imagine a Christopher Guest mockumentary in which all the outlandish, self-serious antics were completely and utterly real. The movie even has those little Guest-esque touches that make his work seem so truly awkward: Mitchell markets his own brand of hot sauce on the side and boasts that it is as perfect as everything else in his life; Walter Day, gamer referee and head of the official arcade game scorekeeping organization, Twin Galaxies, proudly proclaims music to be his true passion before launching into a remarkably awful folk song while wearing a fluffy winter coat in the middle of a field somewhere. It’s hard to draw the line here between what’s being utilized as comedy material and what’s being addressed as a serious matter of study. The result is a film that blurs the lines between narrative comedy and documentary, depicting very relatable characters, establishing a clear villain in cruel Kong maestro Mitchell, and even counting down the days to the big final showdown much like a typical sports comedy would. It’s a film that manages to convey a lot of information to its audience about the often unrecognized world of gaming while still functioning as a perfectly calibrated storytelling vehicle.

At its core, this is an underdog story about a down on his luck husband and father of two named Steve Wiebe who, through entirely self-taught technique, logs a controversial Donkey Kong score that eclipses the presumed unbreakable record of Twin Galaxies all-star Billy Mitchell. Soon a full on investigation is launched into Wiebe’s credibility and he’s forced to surrender his title under allegations that he may have been using a machine that had been tampered with. He sets out, quite atypically for the reserved and humble Wiebe, on a mission to directly disprove any claims that call into question his integrity and officially beat Billy Mitchell for all the gaming world to see. Mitchell’s smug demeanor only makes him all the more unlikable and despite having many minions who willingly aid him in trying to deflect Wiebe’s claims, his deplorable behavior toward his challenger seems to cut them each off one by one. In some ways it’s something of a political thriller in which a puppet regime squashes a worthy uprising only to find sympathizers within their midst. It’s a fascinating world of social climbing and slick internal exchanges, a classic “one man vs. the big machine” story set in a highly original and entertaining new world.

Grade: A

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

DVD of the Week: Year of the Dog

Dark comedy master Mike White (The Good Girl, Chuck & Buck) makes his directorial debut with Year of the Dog, a silly yet emotional film about a loner's journey toward self-discovery following the sudden death of her beloved pet pooch. "Saturday Night Live" alum Molly Shannon plays the film's frazzled leading lady with a level of subtlety previously unexplored in her work. She's aided by a supporting cast that includes Peter Sarsgaard, John C. Reilley, Laura Dern, and Regina King. In true White fashion, things get wildly out of hand and progress to uncomfortable levels of devastation, but this is much more of a redemptive film than his previous efforts. Its melancholy is undeniable, but it can also be described as hopeful.

Monday, August 27, 2007

News: "3:10 to Yuma" Sneak Peek

For all those eager to get their chance at seeing James Mangold's new version of 3:10 to Yuma starring Russell Crowe, Christian Bale, Ben Foster, and Gretchen Mol, you can now do so 5 days earlier. Yuma, Mangold's follow-up to the Oscar winning Walk the Line, will be playing early engagements on Sunday September 2nd, nearly a week prior to its September 7th release date. To see the theatrical trailer and get additional info on the film go here.

News: New Clips for "Eastern Promises"

Resurrecting the Champ

Resurrecting the Champ is a hit or miss drama that works well in its more scathing, hard-edged moments of cutthroat journalism and athletics but falters under the weight of sappy melodrama pertaining to failed marriages and disappointed sons. Josh Hartnett stars as Erik Kernan Jr., an unsatisfied sports writer for The Denver Times whose father was a legendary broadcaster. He wants to make a play at major success instead of simply covering low priority boxing matches and being repeatedly buried under the looming shadow of his beloved father. When he meets a homeless man, played by Samuel L. Jackson, in an alley one fateful night calling himself “The Champ” and identifying himself as boxing icon Bob Satterfield, he thinks he’s found his big break. He’s going to right the story of how Satterfield fell from greatness, resulting in his current disoriented, unfortunate mental and physical condition. More importantly, he’s not going to turn it in to his disapproving boss but instead try to sell it to a more lucrative publication.

What follows is a sometimes sharp but often mundane telling of how Kernan and Champ bond over time. The moments between Hartnett and Jackson usually work very well and the blatant duplicity of Kernan in exploiting Champ and backstabbing his employers makes him a more believably ruthless protagonist. In those darker moments, the film finds life. Where it dies is in the weepy, unconvincing moments in which Kernan must deal with his rocky marriage and his quest to be a better father to his son than his dad was to him. These dalliances, which might have served the film well had they been fine tuned, feel like clear momentum killers in the film. Just as the movie hits a nice stride, it dabbles in Kernan’s home life, and suddenly it’s off key once again.

What’s worth your time is Samuel L. Jackson who gives a really amazing performance as the good-hearted, thick-skinned Champ. Whether or not he proves to be a bread winner for Erik, he’s still a fascinating character with a story that eclipses all of the movie’s tedious subplots. It’s not all good, but the parts of the film that work (mostly the material centering on Jackson) are very solid. As it reaches its end, it’s posing questions about the damages of boxing, the corruption of journalism, and the impossibly unmarketable truth to both these things. It culminates in an unexpectedly dramatic monologue by Teri Hatcher as a fast-talking Showtime executive looking to hire Kernan for their boxing coverage in which she bluntly informs him “Nobody wants the truth.” Sadly, the film carries on beyond that moment for far too long and renders itself numbingly dull. It’s not a terrible movie, just one that didn’t quite come together in the end.

Grade: C+

Saturday, August 25, 2007

Right At Your Door

Right At Your Door opens on a day like any other day in Los Angeles. Brad (Rory Cochrane) makes his coffee. His wife Lexi (Mary McCormack) heads off to work. Then news arrives of multiple explosions in the area and subsequently of the dangerous toxins released by these attacks. What the film gets right above all things is the mania of a major crisis and the many instances of miscommunication that follow. People listen closely to the news on their radio, resorting to the car stereo when power dies out. They try to phone 911 unsuccessfully. These little details of the initial response to the attack make for an unnerving parallel to the aftermath of several recent American tragedies. Then the movie transforms from a note perfect first response thriller into something of a moral drama about Brad’s choices given his wife’s exposure to whatever chemical weapons went off in the area. He has sealed himself into his home (as suggested on his radio) and she is stuck outside, “contaminated.”

There is something innately gut wrenching about their circumstance, but the way their story gets stretched out to nearly an hour’s long wait for some kind of resolution makes it an ultimately more taxing film than a suspenseful one. Once the initial, edge-of-your-seat crisis revelation has passed the film morphs into a talkie with a toxic twist. Brad sits inside the house and consoles his wife just outside his door in what seem to be her final days. It’s an interesting idea, in theory, but despite strong performances from the actors, the characters are a bit too banal to sustain an hour’s worth of casual conversation. And beyond a few good “what’s out there in the bushes?“ scares, that’s really all the film amounts to in the end. The tension breaks just as it should be revving up. Yet strangely it all builds up to an out of place twist ending that’s surprising yet highly unsatisfying. It arrives like an unwanted jolt of electricity just as the film has reached its soft lull of a character climax. While the tragedy of the main characters’ emotional dilemma is quietly and quite beautifully resolved, another more perilous dilemma emerges to tear them from their newly found acceptance of their situation. Whether you see it as a welcome shock or an over the top contrivance for last minute thrills is most likely a matter of personal taste, but it’s a clear reversal of pace for a film better served by subtle chills.

More than most of the moments intended to scare and thrill the audience work and quite a lot of the character dialogue does as well. It’s simply too long a film and too intellectually vacant to really matter with regard to a subject this severe. There are some emotional questions raised about how one would deal with their friends and family in such a time of danger, but save for a viciously heavy-handed indictment of American crisis response tactics, there’s not much real social or political potency. What works here is the inescapably compelling crisis at hand and the “what would you do?” implications of each and every life or death decision a character makes. It puts a very realistic spin on the disaster thriller and that’s a welcome innovation. So, despite some slow moments and a rather warped and unpleasant ending, it’s still intriguing and relatable enough to make it mildly worth seeing.

Grade: B-

News: Lust, Caution To Be Rated NC-17

According to Variety, Focus Features has accepted an NC-17 rating for the upcoming Ang Lee drama Lust, Caution. Set in WWII China, the film tells the story of a young woman (Tang Wei) who is recruited to seduce and then assassinate a Japanese collaborator (Tony Leung). Lee is best known for helming Oscar winning films such as Brokeback Mountain and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, making Lust, Caution a prime contender for next year's big awards race. A lot of things will come into question when the film opens in September. The American NC-17 rating, handed down by the MPAA for films it deems too inappropriate to be seen by children under the age of 17, has been so villainized in recent years that most major film chains (AMC, Regal) and rental stores (Blockbuster) won't even carry films with the rating. These films are also ineligible for television and newspaper ads as well. Focus is making the highly respectable, but potentially dangerous move of accepting a rating that could kill their biggest chance for a hit this winter. It's much more common for a studio to demand that a director recut their work to earn a more marketable R rating. This problem has caused many public flareups in the past between popular directors and their studios and was one of the primary subjects of the 2006 documentary This Film Is Not Yet Rated. It's an issue that pits art against commerce and to the dismay of all film lovers, commerce almost always wins out. "As with so many of his previous films, Oscar-winning director Ang Lee has crafted a masterpiece about and for grown-ups," said James Schamus, Focus CEO and Lust, Caution co-writer. As if I didn't love the studio already for its persistent support of artistic films, including some true modern classics such as Lost In Translation and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, I'm rooting for it more than ever now that it's made such a bold defense of artistry at potentially grave financial costs. It's my greatest hope that Focus and Lust, Caution persevere and perhaps help eradicate the growing, illogical NC-17 stigma. As far as I know, there hasn't been a film of this high a priority and artistic pedigree to be theatrically released as NC-17 since Pedro Almodóvar's Bad Education in 2004, which frankly never stood the chance to crossover the way that Ang Lee's films tend to. This could very well cripple the film and its chances for success and awards recognition, but it could also open the floodgates for paranoid studios to give their creative talent true artistic freedom.

To see the Lust, Caution trailer go here.

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Hannah Takes The Stairs

Mumblecore has officially hit it big. Well, at least big by super low-budget indie standards. It's a vital moment in the genre's lifetime. Just as it's beginning to morph in cinephile public opinion from a mere festival trend to a popular movement expressing the voice of an entire generation, Hannah Takes The Stairs arrives in theaters offering the best of the best in terms of talkie talents. Directed and edited by Joe Swanberg but listed in its opening credits as "A Film By Joe Swanberg, Greta Gerwig, Kent Osborne, Andrew Bujalski, Ry Russo-Young, Mark Duplass, Tod Rohal, and Kevin Bewersdorf," the movie is a true collaboration between the Mumblecore maestros who've emerged in past 10 years. Beyond the basic script comes endless improvisation and added elements, creating something of cohesive tone but unique character voices. Each actor disappears dramatically into their roles. More so than ever before, we're tricked into feeling like we're watching authentic people and not performers in crafted parts.

Gerwig stands out most notably in a passionate and utterly complete turn as Hannah, an emotionally complicated, sometimes unlikable girl who is inescapably drawn to the thrill of new romance. She gets tangled up with men and loses her sadness in their newness only to grow bitter and guilty once the "realness" settles in. It's a pretty hideously accurate peek into the life of a 21st century serial dater and Gerwig plays the part too beautifully to express. She makes something epically emotional out of a conundrum so small in the grand scheme of things. Her climactic realization of her destructive behavior and subsequent decision to continue the cycle anyway is chilling and heartbreaking in a way that few films are. She's wounded and raw in a way that's neither softened by that signature Sundance quirk nor falsened by synthetic Oscar-bait grit. She is just utterly real to us. There's no getting around it.

Mark Duplass, Andrew Bujalski, and Kent Osborne are also likable and charming as the many men of Hannah's life. Perhaps they crumble a bit too readily at her feet, but each one still creates an enjoyable and understandably appealing partner for Hannah. In the end, we realize they've been lured in and then swatted down like flies. But until then we root for them and for her. It's a rarity that someone can behave so badly and still be sympathetic. We feel badly for the rejected men but still remain fascinated by Hannah and her hurtful impulses, still hoping she'll do better next time.

Hannah Takes The Stairs may not be the best of the Mumblecore flicks so far, but it feels like a further evolution toward perfecting the style into something more universal and concrete. Nonetheless, this is probably Swanberg's best yet and another jewel in the Mumblecore crown. There's no other avenue of media with such delicate, honest, and strikingly uncompromised depictions of the current twentysomething demographic of college kids and post-grads. It's art in imitating life in the greatest, most satisfying way.

Grade: A

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

DVD of the Week: The Lives Of Others

This Oscar winning German drama from director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck is a stunning, suspenseful story of intrigue. Set in the 1980s, prior to the fall of the Berlin wall, the film depicts the invasive spying techniques of East Germany on suspected threats, most specifically - in this film, anyway - outspoken artists of the region. Dramatist Georg Dryman (Sebastian Koch) and his actress girlfriend Christa-Maria Sieland (Martina Gedeck) are the latest to have their home bugged and listened in on. It's to their advantage that one of their monitors, Agent Wiesler, (Ulrich Mühe) grows fondly fascinated by their lush upper crust lives. He begins compromising his reports and pursuing the couple on his own time. What results is a tightly wound thriller with political resonance. It's not just the story of the Germans abusive tactics, but also a tense portrait of a man who has become desperately transfixed and the complicated, cracked lives of the unworthy subjects of his adoration.

Monday, August 20, 2007

Trailers: Reservation Road

Story: World-premiering at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival. Based on the critically acclaimed novel of the same name by John Burnham Schwartz, this is the compelling new dramatic thriller from two-time Academy Award-nominated writer/director Terry George (“Hotel Rwanda”). A tale of anger, revenge, and great courage, the film follows two fathers as their families and lives converge. On a warm September evening, college professor Ethan Learner (two-time Academy Award nominee Joaquin Phoenix), his wife Grace (Academy Award winner Jennifer Connelly), and their daughter Emma (Elle Fanning) are attending a recital. Their 10-year-old son Josh (Sean Curley) is playing cello – beautifully, as usual. His younger sister looks up to him, and his parents are proud of their son. On the way home, they all stop at a gas station on Reservation Road. There, in one terrible instant, he is taken from them forever. On a warm September evening, law associate Dwight Arno (Mark Ruffalo) and his 11-year-old son Lucas (Eddie Alderson) are attending a baseball game. Their favorite team, the Red Sox, is playing – and, hopefully, heading for the World Series. Dwight cherishes his time spent with Lucas. Driving his son back to his ex-wife, Lucas’ mother Ruth Wheldon (Academy Award winner Mira Sorvino), Dwight heads towards his fateful encounter at Reservation Road. The accident happens so fast that Lucas is all but unaware, while Ethan – the only witness – is all too aware, as a panicked Dwight speeds away. The police are called, and an investigation begins. Haunted by the tragedy, both fathers react in unexpected ways, as do Grace and Emma. As a reckoning looms, the two fathers are forced to make the hardest choices of their lives.
Director: Terry George (“Hotel Rwanda,” “Some Mother’s Son”)
Writers: John Burnham Schwartz, Terry George; Based on the book by John Burnham Schwartz
Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Connelly, Mira Sorvino, Elle Fanning

Release Date: October 19 (limited)

Trailer:

QuickTime High

http://www.focusfeatures.com/viewer.php?f=reservation_road&c=trailer&ext=mov&w=480&h=360

QuickTime Low

http://www.focusfeatures.com/viewer.php?f=reservation_road&c=trailer&ext=mov&w=320&h=240

Windows Media High

http://www.focusfeatures.com/viewer.php?f=reservation_road&c=trailer&ext=wmv&w=480&h=360

Windows Media Low

http://www.focusfeatures.com/viewer.php?f=reservation_road&c=trailer&ext=wmv&w=320&h=240

Saturday, August 18, 2007

Delirious

The hardest films to grade are the ones that don't consistently perform at the same level. It's easy to praise something near perfect or shred something worse than awful. It's harder to decide exactly how much you like something when you love parts and loathe others.
Such is the case with Delirious, the latest from writer/director Tom DiCillo. At times, most of the time maybe, it's a grade A character study of a sleazy, egotistical, destructive, and strangely vulnerable paparazzi photographer named Les Galantine played by Steve Buscemi as a smarmy, and potentially unhinged wannabe with gripping intensity. It's a volatile, engrossing character portrait in which Buscemi does some of his most remarkable work in years. Then again, there are also endless lame pop culture parody segments here that are not even "Saturday Night Live" worthy. For example, there's an entirely frustrating Britney Spears-esque pop star character named K'harma (a misused Alison Lohman) who is being sued by her parents and mourning the loss of her abusive rocker boyfriend all without a modicum of basic humanity to her story. She films beyond tacky music videos (tackier even than the real ones shot by Spears and Co.) and yet the movie never takes a moment to study her potential feelings of exploitation. She gets one subtle scene, in a bathtub no less, where she confesses to hating cameras, but with so much fodder from the current collection of teen girl lolitas to explore, you'd think DiCillo could have done more with her. She's essentially as 2-dimensional as a similar character in this year's earlier pop music satire, Music and Lyrics, a film of a far lower caliber than this one at its best.

The film also scores big with a homeless teenage vagabond character named Toby played by Michael Pitt. He teams up with Les after a chance encounter and together they develop a complicated, fascinating friendship that grows increasingly darker and more deceptive over time. Buscemi and Pitt work brilliantly together and the measure of their interpersonal dynamics by DiCillo is inspired. He captures two very distinct characters, each with passions and flaws of their own, neither wrong, neither truly bad or truly good. It's a fully realized conundrum when the grateful but motivated Toby realizes that breaking away from Les is his only chance of making his own mark in the industry.

The shift from Toby vs. Les onto less interesting stories about Toby's romance with K'harma and eventual brush with superstardom is a virtual death knell for the film. Once the symbiotic pity party of Les and Toby's friendship falls out of focus we're left to feed off the bottom with K'harma and an equally vapid agent named Dana (the also misused Gina Gershon) hogging the screen. To make matters worse, Toby's fame derives from a show that's too stupid even for the dumbest network to realistically sponsor, and when we've witnessed such a real emotional break between Toby and Les such mundane parody feels ugly and stupid.

The movie ends in decent shape but it's already gone so far off the rails by then it almost doesn't matter. The last 20 minutes or so are pretty much dreadful save for the very final fascinating, repulsing, and shocking moment. The first half is a stylish, sadistic joyride, something of an Almost Famous for the soulless fame generation. The second half is some sort of spoof thriller in which everyone's IQ drops radically and people become willing to lie, kill, and imprison one another for fame and glory. I suspect the ludicrous bits were intended as winkingly outrageous parody but they play simply as ludicrous plot holes. I still can't help but love a great deal of this film, and admire the work of Buscemi in creating one of the more electrifying film characters I've seen recently.

Grade: B-

Superbad

Producer Judd Apatow continues his domination of the American comedy landscape with Superbad, penned by pals Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg and directed by TV comedy vet Greg Mottola. It's the seemingly self-reflexive tale of Seth and Evan, two outsider high schoolers trying to score big on popularity and female companionship as the final weeks of school draw to a close. Seth (Jonah Hill) hatches a scheme to make a power play at a nearing party by delivering the supercool alcohol for the shindig, roping Evan (Michael Cera) and the fake ID toting Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse, a teenage actor making a hilarious debut he might regret 40 years from now when people on the street still call him McLovin - you'll see why) into the scheme. What follows is a plot-wise by the book "one wild night" comedy farce that's elevated tremendously by the ultratalented cast (also including Rogen and Bill Hader as less than stellar officers of the law) and the solidly sophisticated, albeit aggressively obscene, screenplay. Kudos also are due to Mottola who takes the helm with an appropriate vision for making the film believable and relatable even with its outrageous, illogical comedy gags. His experiences on complex comedy shows such as "Arrested Development" and "Undeclared" seem to have taught him a thing or two about balancing tone and straddling the line between wit and idiocy.

It takes a bit for the film to warm up, emerging from blunt vulgarity to suggest something more clever and unforeseeably sincere. But once it's finally solidified its strange but ultimately very satisfying future frat boy banter dialogue rhythms, it launches into a breakneck pace. It becomes the sort of comfortable film comedy experience where you gladly laugh out loud at jokes you usually wouldn't, simply for the reason that they're swept up in the light speed momentum of other, truly phenomenal ones. Everything Cera, Hill, and the rest of cast say or do just seems funny. When you take a breath, it becomes clear that it's not all golden. There are more than a few duds and some unnecessary tangents, but the hits outweigh the misses, and who's counting anyway? The film flies free and loose, and nitpicking such a fun ride seems ultimately useless and party pooping. All quibbles aside, it's a very funny film, and an unexpected late Summer surprise.

Grade: A-

News: The New Talkies Fest at IFC Center

For anyone digging the work of Andrew Bujalski, Joe Swanberg, The Duplass Brothers, and the rest of the current talkie revival crew (which I absolutely am), there's a week long fest in celebration of this great new crop of talented cinematic voices this week at the IFC Center in New York City. The fest kicks off on Wednesday with the theatrical premiere of Joe Swanberg's Hannah Takes the Stairs and concludes on September 4th. It will also include screenings of some of the movement's best features including Bujalski's Mutual Appreciation, which I named one of the 10 best films of 2006. For more info go here: http://www.ifccenter.com/event?eventid=999852.

Friday, August 17, 2007

Trailers: Great World of Sound

Martin (Healy) answers an ad to train as a record producer, where he's excited by the prospect of signing undiscovered artists. The company, called Great World of Sound, partners shy, unassuming Martin with the gregarious Clarence (Holliday) and sends them on the road, visiting southern towns where the company has placed newspaper ads and turning motels into makeshift audition studios. Though an unlikely duo, they sign more acts than anyone else at the company. But when Martin takes a special interest in a young girl’s “New National Anthem,” putting up his own money and following her progress, he discovers that something’s amiss with the enterprise. As things threaten to unravel, he’s forced to weigh his nagging conscience against both his loyalty to Clarence and his own financial ruin. A playful, contemporary take on the classic American story of the confidence man, GREAT WORLD OF SOUND evokes conflicted hucksters from Willy Loman and the Mayles Brothers’ SALESMAN to the seedy charmers of seventies Altman. With real-life audition footage weaved into the fictional narrative, Zobel’s provocative debut explores the outer limits of our desire for celebrity, where big dreams beget bigger illusions, and fame always has its price. Due in theaters Sseptember 14th.

Trailer

http://server.mammothnyc.com/greatworldofsound/GreatWorldofSoundTrailer.mov

Trailers: The Nines

John August, the acclaimed screenwriter of GO, BIG FISH, CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY and THE CORPSE BRIDE, makes his directorial debut with THE NINES, an intricately constructed intriguing blur of reality, virtual reality and metaphysical fantasy. The film unfolds in three parts, featuring the same actors in different (and in some ways overlapping) incarnations.

Ryan Reynolds stars with Melissa McCarthy, Hope Davis and Elle Fanning as:

Gary (Reynolds) - a TV actor who finds himself under house arrest after one too many benders. He is tended to by an impossibly chipper publicist (McCarthy) and a sexually tempting new mother next door (Davis).

Gavin (Reynolds), a show-runner who is the subject of a reality TV show about the thorny process of creating a network series (not dissimilar to August himself). His show stars his (and August's) best friend, the actress Melissa McCarthy, much to the chagrin of the network's development executive (Davis). He also happens to own the house where Gary is imprisoned (John August's actual home).

Gabriel (Reynolds) - a successful video game designer who runs into car trouble with his wife (McCarthy) and daughter (Fanning) in the woods and then into even greater trouble when he seeks help from an attractive hitchhiker (Davis).

Together, the three stories form a single narrative that explores the relationships between author and character, actor and role, creator and creation. Alternately funny and unsettling, The Nines is like a riddle where the answer may just lead to another question.

Here is the trailer for this intriguing and complex film due in theaters August 31st:
http://www.specialopsmedia.com/assets/NewmarketFilms/TheNines/TNS_(DOM)_REVISED_NEW.zip

As a companion piece to the film, Newmarket Films' has developed a cross media game consisting of nine puzzles. The answers form a trail to the grand prize. Mirroring the tone of the film, The Nines game blends the virtual and the real. Here are links to the first three puzzle clues:

http://www.ugo.com/a/the-nines/
http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=23106
http://www.movieweb.com/news/04/21904.php

For more info on the film go to http://lookforthenines.com/

Rocket Science

Good luck trying to resist the charms of Rocket Science, writer/director Jeffrey Blitz's cute as a button Sundance charmer about the very awkward years of high school. Everything from the young cast of unknowns to Blitz's own wistful directing style to the original score by Eef Barzelay (Clem Snide) screams festival favorite but unlike some of the more shrill, aggressively quirky comedies to arrive out of Sundance (Napoleon Dynamite anyone?) Rocket Science is a top notch, feel-good high school classic. It crystallizes the pain of Hal Hefner, (Reece Thompson) a social outcast with an embarrassing stutter into such a clear, inescapably heartbreaking affair that it's hard to look away even from his biggest trainwreck moments. Rarely do conventional John Hughes, "My So-Called Life" type situations sting with such truth. But they do here. Maybe better than anywhere ever before.

Hefner's level of abuse hits new heights when a speech and debate superstar, Ginny Ryerson, (Anna Kendrick in a no-joke Oscar-worthy performance of hard to pin down complexity) handpicks him to be her speech partner following the fateful undoing of the legendary Ben Wekselbaum (Nicholas D'Agosto) at last year's big statewide debate showdown. She trains him and leads him to the slaughter as best she can and Hal's sad little efforts to live up to her expectations only worsens the disappointments ahead. The film is most specifically about Hal discovering his voice, literally and figuratively, but unlike most films where the protagonist's academic goal is just one good studying montage out of his reach, Hal must come to realize that he's facing a much longer and painful life process. The maturity of the film in its resolve to keep the characters dreaming but never serve up quick satisfaction is remarkable and original. With something this keenly radical, there's just no telling where Hal will end up or whether he'll ever really succeed at his objective. In the end, it's got a lot to do with small victories and patience, a more practical and responsible life lesson than those offered up by most dim bulb underdog tales. This is a real winner.

Grade: A

2 Days In Paris

Writer/director Julie Delpy brilliantly cast herself and the underappreciated Adam Goldberg as Marion and Jack respectively, a couple en route to New York City after a long trip in Venice who take a brief detour to visit Marion's family in Paris. The decision, as it turns out, causes more than a few problems. What results is a hilarious, strangely organic talkie comedy that's something like Annie Hall by way of Before Sunset. One of the most instantly striking things about the film as it opens is how much Delpy's detached, wry narration of Marion's childhood in Paris resembles Allen's account of Alvy Singer's Coney Island upbringing living "directly beneath the Cyclone." Even more striking is the reveal of Delpy with thick-rimmed glasses and tussled hair making her look more like the Hall era Keaton than ever before. Whether it's a film purposefully rich with homage or accidentally inclusive of specific influences is uncertain, but what is definite is that Delpy has found a way to make a film with both the intellectual, savvy slyness of Allen's best work and the raw, fly on the wall fascination of the current talkie revival. Even at his best, Allen always felt like he was hiding behind a facade of Woody Allen-ism, never to (or at least not yet) make something vulnerable enough to give a perplexing realism to all the neuroses. 2 Days In Paris succeeds at doing just that.

Jack is an insecure hypochondriac. Marion is an impatient firecracker growing neurotic over the impulse to commit. We experience their lives together for two days in great detail, revealing all their quirks and tics, the good and bad and middle ground of their personalities. By the end of the film, the picture we get of each is as grippingly complete and earnest as one can hope for. Save for some forced sounding narration and perhaps running a bit too long, the film really is a joy to watch. It's humor, in particular, refreshes with an uncommon naturalism for a modern comedy. Broad gags and situational goofiness have been the most common way to entertain for decades, but when a film actually manages to make us laugh just by the simple nature of human behavior, it's a welcome relief.

The film is also a stunning testament to the charms of Delpy and Goldberg both of which deliver outstanding performances in truly humble form. Goldberg's best work is primarily found in off hand sounding comments and caustic glances. Delpy conversely works best when she's full off words, rattling off hilarious revenge speeches to cab drivers and old flames alike. Ironically, the slowest moments of the film come when the two try to share dramatic moments as a couple. We learn so much about them from the little details along the way that when they finally square off in the film's slightly disappointing second half, we already know everything they could possibly say and more. The dialogue lacks the revelatory layers of the Sunrise/Sunset series and the movie never quite reaches the heights it should, but what it does well is depict the fascinating nuances of two people with great humor and sincerity.

Grade: B+

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

This Is England

Writer/director Shane Meadows injects some life into the coming of age genre with This Is England, a real as hell, semi-autobiographical drama about Shaun, (Thomas Turgoose) an 11 year old boy in 1980s England who joins up with a merry band of skinheads. At first, it's just some harmless misbehavior with a gang of older kids, but when the group's former leader, Combo (Stephen Graham) returns from prison with more heady, aggressive ideas about national pride things take a turn for the worse. Shaun's misplaced rage over the death of his father at war only furthers his desire to act in what he believes to be the best interests of his nation. It also helps him build an unhealthy connection to the equally lonely Combo, whose undefined past seems to contain many disappointments of its own.

Shaun's involvement with the gang evolves very quickly from a sweet, adopted family connection to a brutal, dangerous descent into darker territory. Meadows gift is in defining the difference between harmless thugs and dangerous ones, catching the insincere machismo in some characters' dialogue while reinforcing the terrifying sincerity of others' words. He's also drawn a truly unnerving performance out of the young Turgoose whose beyond his years commitment to the role only furthers the painful truth of what's happening. If he'd been anything like most precocious kid stars, the spell would be broken. But he's so undeniably believable in conveying both Shaun's surface swagger and his inner torment that there's no evading the impact of this story.

From start to finish, This Is England, is a wonderfully written, directed, and performed feature with flawless attention to period detail and a flair for finding ways to keep even the most potentially overstylized moments seeming truthful. It's rare to find a film that knows the right way to use a musical montage nowadays but Meadows has several that function with dead on accuracy, particularly a closing moment set to a stirring cover of The Smith's "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want." This is a film where each scene is realized to perfection with enough complexity and awkward imperfection to make it feel like real life unfolding. Meadows has delivered a mini-masterpiece.

Grade: A

DVD of the Week: 51 Birch Street

Doug Block discovered that sometimes the most fascinating stories can be found in the simplest of places when making this documentary about his parents, who shared a seemingly happy marriage for 54 years. Upon the death of his mother, Block begins looking into her past, and into her diaries, and discovers some unexpected surprises. He's also taken off guard when his father very suspiciously marries his former secretary shortly after his mother's passing. This compels Block to further research their marriage. The result is a haunting and emotional documentary that's both deeply personal and indicative of a entire generation's plight.

Monday, August 13, 2007

Trailers: Lars and the Real Girl

"Six Feet Under" scribe Nancy Oliver penned this odd looking dramedy starring Ryan Gosling, Emily Mortimer, Paul Schneider, and Patricia Clarkson. Those names alone make it a must see film in my book. Gosling plays an socially awkward nice guy who takes to a life-size doll named Bianca and begins treating her as his real life girlfriend. The rest of the town, including Lars' brother (Schneider) and his wife (Mortimer) are stunned by Lars' odd behavior and continue to play along in hopes he'll overcome whatever crisis he's experiencing. The film opens on October 12th.

Trailer
http://www.apple.com/trailers/mgm/larsandtherealgirl/trailer/

Cashback

Sean Ellis' debut feature length film, Cashback, adapted from a short of his own, is an ugly little insomniac fantasy with some atmospheric flourishes but pitifully lowbrow sensibilities. Toilet humor and sex gags are not above the film, which includes in its repertoire of creepy sexual moments a sequence in which its protagonist undresses an entire grocery store full of women that are frozen in time (in his imagination, of course) and then sketches them one by one. The artist in question is Ben Willis (Sean Biggerstaff), an art student still heartbroken over a break up with the gone too soon to care about Suzy (Michelle Ryan). His inability to sleep after the loss of Suzy, which inexplicably never even makes him even the slightest bit groggy, leads him to put his spare 8 hours a day to good use by working the night shift at a supermarket. It's there that he decides that the best way to pass time is to pretend it's not moving at all. He imagines that he can stop time at will and in these captured moments he rediscovers life's beauty (by ogling the uniformly statuesque late night customers).

The film has some funny moments and at the very least Ellis makes an effort to give it a unique voice and style. It's just much too paltry to succeed and far too silly to carry its endless philosophical mutterings. By the midway mark, the main narrative trajectory has all but ended and the film moves on to one subplot after the next including unnecesary childhood flashbacks, a botched second romance, and a random soccer match of all things. It goes nowhere and says nothing of value. Worst of all, it's lethargic and self-important in the same beats where it's also grotesque and asinine. It's both too smart and too stupid for its own good, something I never thought possible. There's a major identity crisis at play here, but Ellis certainly has potential.

Grade: C-

Dans Paris

Dans Paris is a tedious, pretentious drama about depression, failed romance, and the general meaninglessness of life. It's full of characters in "deep" conversations full of inert dialogue that are almost comically bleak. It's also ruined by strained stylistic allusions to the French New Wave that take what might have just been a mediocre talkie and render it utterly frustrating. The basic, grainy look to the film is textbook effective but experimentation with direct address and other reflexive techniques feels mostly awkward and disruptive to the story. Romain Duris and Louis Garrel star as two very different brothers, one depressed after the end of a long term relationship and the other a free spirit womanizer with little concern for anything at all. Both actors possess the kind of charisma and naturally articulate flair that's needed in films like these but they still can't save writer/director Christophe Honoré's clunker from its sad fate.

At best you can call it a creative experiment or a harmless homage to more talented French filmmakers. But nihilism has never been more interminably dull than it is here. Nonetheless, there are some brief charms. The cast manages to eke out some refreshingly simple moments between their convoluted declarations of doom and gloom. At lighter times in the film, Duris and Garrel let their charms run the show (Duris perking up to dance a bit to Kim Wilde's "Cambodia" is just the right note of silly and oddly sad), but elsewhere they are stonewalled by a stiff, far reaching director who is out of his league.

Grade: C

Saturday, August 11, 2007

Hairspray

In its third incarnation, John Waters' Hairspray has its smoothest edges yet with most if not all of the original Waters camp reduced to some poofy hair and a cross dressing John Travolta as its lead. Still, the movie, adapted from the musical based on the 1982 Waters' film, has much of the original's spark of rebellious spirit and a much more universally palatable, sugary delivery. It's a toe tapping, silly fun film about outsiders and the pains of prejudicial hierarchy, a treat in the sense that it manages to be a feel good summer flick at the same time that it's sticking in Waters' worthy jabs of social commentary and luring audiences into something whose message they may not have anticipated. Call it a surreptitious lecture or a pop culture ambush if you like, but it's obvious that more people are going to see this version of Hairspray than ever saw the original.

Newcomer Nikki Blonsky recreates the role of Tracy Turnblad here with extra spunk and great warmth. Tracy's defined by a certain naivete and unabashed joy for music and dance and Blonsky as a hand picked unknown exudes the same sense of triumph for being in this film that Tracy must for her success in getting herself a spot dancing on TV despite being atypically overweight for the medium. The joy of her performance, and most of the film for that matter, is that she actually seems to be having fun in the part. The movie is infectious and enjoyable from end to end with a collection of somewhat forgetable but never dull bouncy pop tunes and a few true standout showstoppers that solidify the unexpected power of the otherwise not much more than generally pleasant film. Count Queen Latifah among the scene stealers as Motormouth Maybelle, the host of "negro day" on the local American Bandstand-esque teen music show, The Corny Collins Show. Latifah nails the searing "I Know Where I've Been" which plays brilliantly here as a march anthem for an equal rights protest. Also standing out is the ice queen performance by Michelle Pfeiffer who makes her first return to the movie musical since the disastrous Grease 2 and delivers a thoroughly riotous performance as the self-righteous bitch Velma Von Tussle. Travolta too is making a big musical return with a funny, joke within a joke within a joke kind of performance as Tracy's mother Edna, a role originated by Waters' staple Divine and reprised by Harvey Fierstein on the stage.

Until now, director Adam Shankman has been best known for truly forgettable comedies like Cheaper by the Dozen (yes, parts 1 and 2), but here he's coming into his own as a able handler of a big screen comedy of note. His style is more competent than revelatory which gives the film a sadly serviceable and not exactly breathtaking sheen but as I discussed before such a tone has its uses. This Hairspray may not exactly rewrite the book on musical comedies but it's sure to sell tickets to a fun spectacle that's actually worth seeing, a fate that's perhaps better than the certain arthouse invisibility of a film tailored toward satisfying fans of Waters' more controversial attributes.

Grade: B+

Trailers: Lust, Caution

Synopsis: The new film from Ang Lee, the Academy Award-winning director of “Brokeback Mountain” and “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.” A startling erotic espionage thriller about the fate of an ordinary woman’s heart, it is based on the short story by revered Chinese author Eileen Chang, and stars Asian cinema icon Tony Leung opposite screen newcomer Tang Wei. Shanghai, 1942. The World War II Japanese occupation of this Chinese city continues in force. Mrs. Mak, a woman of sophistication and means, walks into a café, places a call, and then sits and waits. She remembers…how her story began several years earlier, in 1938 China. She is not in fact Mrs. Mak, but shy Wong Chia Chi (Tang Wei). With WWII underway, Wong has been left behind by her father, who has escaped to England. As a freshman at university, she meets fellow student Kuang Yu Min (Wang Leehom) Kuang has started a drama society to shore up patriotism. As the theater troupe’s new leading lady, Wong realizes that she has found her calling, able to move and inspire audiences – and Kuang. He convenes a core group of students to carry out a radical and ambitious plan to assassinate a top Japanese collaborator, Mr. Yee (Tony Leung). Each student has a part to play; Wong will be Mrs. Mak, who will gain Yee’s trust by befriending his wife (Joan Chen) and then draw the man into an affair. Wong transforms herself utterly inside and out, and the scenario proceeds as scripted – until an unexpectedly fatal twist spurs her to flee. Shanghai, 1941. With no end in sight for the occupation, Wong – having emigrated from Hong Kong – goes through the motions of her existence. Much to her surprise, Kuang re-enters her life. Now part of the organized resistance, he enlists her to again become Mrs. Mak in a revival of the plot to kill Yee, who as head of the collaborationist secret service has become even more a key part of the puppet government. As Wong reprises her earlier role, and is drawn ever closer to her dangerous prey, she finds her very identity being pushed to the limit...
Director: Ang Lee (“Brokeback Mountain,” “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”)
Writer: Wang Hui Ling, James Schamus; Based on the short story by Eileen Chang
Cast: Tony Leung, Tang Wei, Joan Chen, Wang Leehom
Release date: September 28

QuickTime High
http://www.focusfeatures.com/viewer.php?f=lust_caution&c=trailer&amp;amp;ext=mov&w=480&h=260

QuickTime Low
http://www.focusfeatures.com/viewer.php?f=lust_caution&c=trailer&amp;amp;ext=mov&w=320&h=172

Windows Media High
http://www.focusfeatures.com/viewer.php?f=lust_caution&c=trailer&amp;amp;ext=wmv&w=480&h=260

Windows Media Low
http://www.focusfeatures.com/viewer.php?f=lust_caution&c=trailer&amp;amp;ext=wmv&w=320&h=172

Trailers: Be Kind Rewind

From visionary director Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) comes Be Kind Rewind, a goofy looking little indie comedy about two down on their luck video rental store owners (played by Jack Black & Mos Def) who have to foolishly recreate all the movies in their shop when one of them is accidentally magnetized and deletes a store's worth of VHS cassettes. I'm not sure how to get past the basic flaw that VHS is almost obsolete by now, but I'd trust Gondry to find a way to make this concept work. The film will be released on December 21st.

Trailer
http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809761737/video/3631941/

Friday, August 10, 2007

Stardust

Stardust could very well be the biggest surprise of the Summer so far. After months of awkward promotional materials that made the movie look like a juvenile fairy tale farce comes the genuine article in all its entertaining, escapist luster. The movie's a sharply directed and expertly performed fantasy film with a great sense of adventure and a lively sense of humor. There's something a little old-fashioned in it too, an optimism uncommon to the jaded post-modern, post-Shrek fantasies of our time that's made palatable by the film's genuinely good spirit and its wry, self-effacing wit. There's no telling exactly where the story could go from moment to moment, and it's constantly delving deeper into imaginative new realms of magic and mystery. It calls upon countless fairy tale conventions and synthesizes them into an effortlessly involving and brilliantly original feature with familiar trappings but a fresh beating heart at its core.

Charlie Cox stars as Tristan, a shop worker in the town of Wall which borders the line between England and the magical realm. One day Tristan crosses the wall between the two, promising to return to his true love Victoria (Sienna Miller) with a fallen star in exchange for her hand in marriage. Once he's entered the magical realm things prove much more complicated than he thought. The star, Yvaine, comes to Earth in the form of one Ms. Claire Danes and she's not exactly keen on being shepherded back by a lovestruck teenager. The snippy banter between the two is one of the earliest and most definingly silly charms of the film. Tristan's heroic moments are very quickly deflated. Despite all the outrageous adventure, this is still a very human film, messy and uncomfortable in all the right places. On his journey back to Wall with Yvaine, Tristan must dodge an evil witch named Lamia (Michelle Pfeiffer in bona fide comeback mode with this and Hairspray behind her) trying to steal Yvaine's heart to achieve eternal youth. There's also a third subplot involving seven very funny brothers all trying to steal the throne from their recently deceased father (Peter O' Toole). All three wonderfully intertwine with each other culminating in a big finale that brings all three to a satisfying end.

Director Matthew Vaughn makes the leap from British gangsters (Layer Cake) to the realm of witches and magic with great ease and style, establishing himself as a genre crossing talent of note. What's great about his vision of the mystical world of Stardust is the plainness with witch he creates such beautifully surreal inventions. He uses special effects sparingly and to great effect, keeping most of the film looking oddly natural for a movie of this type. It's a nice contrast to the effects burdened epics of late and a further precaution against comparisons to bland children's fantasies full of CGI but absent of real imagination. It's a love story, action adventure with great maturity and fun sensibilities.

Stardust is altogether minor, but sometimes executing a minor story with big tme conviction can be a major accomplishment. The movie races with excitement, laughs, and heart, a feat that has eluded most of its more famous billion dollar franchise competitors this Summer. It's the kind of truly enjoyable light entertainment that gives crappy movies shamefully excusing themselves as "light fun" a good whipping. A film can be fun and good at the same time and this film is just that.

Grade: A-

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

DVD of the Week: Disturbia

This sleeper hit thriller, which basically amounts to a Rear Window ripoff for the iPod generation, was one of Spring's biggest surprises. Despite the dopey title and copycat premise, the film is actually a satisfying albeit somewhat predictable suspense flick that merges contemporary teen horror with old fashioned Hitchcockian flair. Burgeoning movie star Shia LaBeouf is 80s Cusack-esque as Kale, a juvenile delinquent outsider with a certain fast talking, finicky charm. He spots some shady business going on at a neighbor's house late one night and proceeds to spy on the creep across the street (played by David Morse) while hanging out with his best friend (Aaron Yoo) and the alluring new girl next door (Sarah Roemer). Count first time helmer D.J. Caruso as a talent to watch for in the future. He took what could have been (and quite possibly should have been) a major dud and turned it into a fun, filling treat. It's a feat not entirely unlike the breakout work of Disturbia producer Steven Spielberg who 30 years ago took the potentially disastrous creature feature Jaws and made it a classic.

Sunday, August 05, 2007

The Ten

Director David Wain of "The State" and Wet Hot American Summer fame is the sort of comedy filmmaker who seems to be working primarily to make his best stoner buddies laugh at his jokes. The Ten is an unabashedly stupid and random comedy that turns each of the 10 commandments into a goofy vignette none of which really relates much to the other and only about half of which are truly funny. And it's all bundled together with an odd Woody Allen parody that has Paul Rudd introducing fables, feuding with Famke Janssen, flirting with Jessica Alba, and divorcing Dianne Wiest all within the film's brief 90 minute runtime. Go figure.

I wanted to like this movie much more than I actually did. It's pure nuttiness is charming in ways, but it's too much in love with its own somewhat exclusive sense of knowingly juvenile humor to carry beyond its niche audience. It takes a certain kind of person to find Wain and Co. funny and if you are that sort of person, this might be the highlight of your summer. If you're not, be prepare to cringe and be bored and giggle once or twice at the absurd goofiness. It's hit or miss from start to finish with the highlights including a torrid love affair between Grechen Mol and Jesus ("Thou Shall Not Take The Lord's Name In Vain") and a race between Liev Schrieber and his next door neighbor to be the owner of the most CAT scan machines in the neighborhood ("Thou Shall Not Covet Thy Neighbor's Possessions"). Co-writer Ken Marino also gets some mileage out of an inept doctor character who leaves surgical scissors in a patient "as a goof." Parts of the movie are actually very funny, but too much of it is laughless stupidity to really make it worth your time in the end. Bits and pieces offer silly fun, but elsewhere it's like a long haul through an evening with some very drunken buddies who find Rhino poop hilarious (cartoon rhino poop to be specific).

Grade: C+

The Bourne Ultimatum

There's no better middle ground when it comes to summer blockbusters than this consistent espionage franchise. In the wake of endless cartoonish superheroes and Hasbro toys turned action stars, The Bourne Ultimatum plays like a jolt back to reality, a combination of spectacle appeal and true artistry. Shot largely on location and through the inventive eye of returning helmer Paul Greengrass (hot off an Oscar nomination for United 93), it's the kind of action movie that makes other action movies seem lazy. The story picks up after the climactic, dizzying car chase of 2004's The Bourne Supremacy and follows Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) as he continues on his quest to figure out who he is and what exactly the government has done to him. He gets a lead when a London based journalist (Paddy Considine) scores vital info from an inside government source, but the CIA, led by the ruthless and snide Noah Vosen (David Stathairn) gets to the reporter first. Bourne and Vosen collide in a breathless chase sequence at Waterloo Station and from that moment on they each embark in hot pursuit of the journalist's unknown source. The chase very quickly goes global and we're treated to another round of worldly, sophisticated spy vs. spy excitement.

Damon is once again a stoic delight as the brooding Jason Bourne and in his third outing in this role gives maybe the most subtle, unforced performance of his career. His embodiment of Bourne seems almost effortless and for that, the character seems even more authentic in his haunting detachment and sly wit. Similar things could be said for Greengrass in the director's chair. Where The Bourne Supremacy was a whirling, sometimes unfollowable action blur, The Bourne Ultimatum shows him perfecting this style into something far more deliberate and specifically crafted. He keeps the freewheeling camera style intact without letting it overbear the logical narrative rhythms. Instead of just basking in mania, he grabs the reins and makes the mania work at his hill. In retrospect, The Bourne Supremacy, feels even more like an experiment of discovery for both men that tested the limits of what they were capable of and helped them to redefine a franchise, and perhaps the entire action genre for a new generation. There would be no gritty Casino Royale if Jason Bourne hadn't stolen the thunder away from campy summer spectacle of yesteryear. Greengrass and Damon are making the action franchise that could define blockbuster trends for the current decade.

There's just no way to express how refreshing a film of this nature is for someone bored by typical summer films. There's hardly anything this well written, acted, and directed anywhere in multiplexes or arthouses at the moment. The Bourne Ultimatum is not just a brilliant film, it's an unspoken argument for the potential of the action genre and a slap in the face to anyone who bemoans the notion of a sequel. It proves that there's no inherent flaw in films in either or both of those categories. This is an action sequel for the ages.

Grade: A

Friday, August 03, 2007

DVD of the Week: Hot Fuzz

Horror spoof Shaun of the Dead director Edgar Wright sets his sights on the buddy cop genre this time around, bringing along Shaun costars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost for a hilarious, pitch-perfect parody and loving homage to action movies of all kinds. It takes a very brave film to gleefully extol the glories of Michael Bay's Bad Boys II, but this one does that and more. It's as in love with lowest common denominator flicks as it is critical of them. It's more of a fun nudge than a blunt, berating send up. Here Pegg plays an ace police officer who gets reassigned to a quaint little town where there's hardly any reported crime. He meets up with an action movie obsessed officer played by Nick Frost and together they investigate some shady goings on in the neighborhood. It turns out that there's no crime, but lots of "accidents."