DVD Pick: Torchwood – Children Of Earth

Russell T. Davies may have masterfully rebooted "Doctor Who" for the 21st century but his greater legacy may lie with "Torchwood," the unique spin-off he created for the franchise. The show is centered around a genius character of his own creation: Captain Jack Harkness, played by John Barrowman, an immortal 51st century omnisexual time agent who has gotten himself stuck in time on contemporary earth. In his newest life, he works at Torchwood, a secret government agency that handles the scientifically bizarre cases that regular law enforcement cannot. He has an ongoing relationship with co-worker Ianto Jones (Gareth David-Lloyd) and a complicated history with newly married co-worker Gwen Cooper (Eve Myles). That the series features two ambiguously gay action heroes and a female heroine who outguns the boys is only a fraction of the subversive edge that makes the show so daring, new, and exciting to behold. The series tells stories of a darker, more sophisticated, and often more explicit nature than the family friendly mothership series, "Who." In its third season, the show has transformed into a "mini-series event" which allows for one massive story arc told accross 5 days (i.e. 5 hour-long installments).

Titled "Children of Earth," the series tells the story of an earth rattled by an ominous alien presence which possesses its children in order to communicate with the masses. "We are coming" the children pronounce together one morning. And so it begins. Exactly what is coming, what they want, and what happens next are all too shocking and amazing to give away. As are more or less all details about the ensuing plot. But they are good. Astoundingly so. What can be said of this series is that it is the bravest and most reflective sci-fi program since "Battlestar Galactica." In its newest incarnation, it addresses extraterrestial invasion in a graphic, vicious, horrendous and soul crushing way that truly captures a world gone mad, the chaos that lay in wait should the social order ever collapse. It is absolutely riveting material performed with great skill by Barrowman, Myles, David-Lloyd, Kai Owen and guest actors Peter Capaldi, Paul Copley, Susan Brown, Cush Jumbo, and Lucy Cohu among others. By my estimate, the mini-series seems widely accesible to new viewers. So even the unitiated can partake of this, its finest and darkest hour.

DVD Pick: The Middleman – The Complete Series

Born into the ghetto that is ABC Family, TV's "The Middleman" barely stood a chance. Brain-child of "Lost" scribe Javier Grillo-Marxuach, the series blends comic book capers with off the wall slapstick and a self-reflexive knack for making the best of everything. Villains include a vast assortment of oddities ranging from vampire puppets to an alien boy band. Matt Keeslar stars as the titular superhero, a nameless agent employed by a faceless higher power who performs his duties with the utmost diligence and celebrates his victories by tossing back a big glass of milk. His world gets shaken up when he recruits a new assistant, Wendy Watson (Natalie Morales), a rebellious, perpetually snarky slacker who is more capable than she thinks. The two opposites form a wonderfully comic tag team as they take on mysterious whatsits and save the world a lot. For all its cheese, the series proves surprisingly smart, dense with pop culture lore, and oddly touching at times. It's a sci-fi/fantasy genre bender along the lines of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" or "Doctor Who." And at only 13 episodes, the complete series is an enjoyable and accessible treat just waiting to be discovered on DVD.

(500) Days Of Summer

Director Marc Webb's sly, classic in the making rom-com, (500) Days Of Summer, penned by Scott Neustadter Michael H. Weber, does for 2009 what Annie Hall did for 1977: it takes the aging, unimaginative romantic comedy genre into a new era with wit, insight, and an awareness of all that has come before. The film drifts whimsically along through a scrambled timeline as it follows the 500 days of the on-again-off-again relationship between hopeless romantic Tom (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and cynical commitment-phobe Summer (Zooey Deschanel). That those actors and this film so neatly fit into the sub-category of "indie" style can seem a mockable and trite quality but the film itself is a friend and foe to formula, weaving predictability hand-in-hand with nuance. The film re-enacts so many film patterns we have seen a million times before and then magnificently departs from them at precisely the right moments.

In short, this is a thoroughly modern romantic comedy that is hyper-reflexive, ADD friendly, and a definite mix of half-serious homage and thoroughly sincere reimagining. It gives us all of the elements that we expect but not necessarily in the order we expect them, or in the manner that is traditional. Best of all, the movie is a joy to watch from start to finish. It's a fresh and wonderfully buoyant film experience complete with a goofball dance routine and geniusly comic sequences such as the semi-climactic Expectations vs. Reality montage in which we see an important scene played out simultaneously as fact and fiction. These touches help carry the film into a higher echelon of entertainment, the kind that genuinely starts trends and shakes up standards. The film dares to be visually adventurous, editting its narrative out of sequence and adding numerous artistic flourishes that could easily have been squelched in favor of commerciality. Moreover, it captures honest emotions, namely a sense of longing and frustration/addiction to artifice that feels distinct to this generation. Hopefully it will inspire others to expand the rom-com palette to include smartly conceived visual and narrative concepst so often not even considered when assembling a formula feature. It is that kind of ingenuity which makes this most certainly the greatest romantic comedy so far this year, and perhaps even so far this decade.

Grade: A

DVD Pick: Coraline

Director Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas) adapts Neil Gaiman's graphic novel of the same name into the modern day Wizard Of Oz that is Coraline. The not-so-kiddie kid's flick is an animated spectacle (available on DVD in 2-D and 3-D format) packed to the brim with imagination and dazzling visual images. Dakota Fanning voices Coraline, the bored young girl who has just moved to a new town. She discovers a secret door in her dreams which leads her to an alternate world in which everything seems more than perfect. Her parents are magical, fun, and attentive. The food is delicious and always flowing. The neighbors are consumate performers who puts on special performances just for her. But as in every fairytale, her wonderland might just be too good to be true. Coraline is a sophisticated and surprisingly intense film suitable for older children and practically every adult. It's an imaginative dreamscape and a touching parable about being careful what you wish for. The thing to see now for anyone who is salivating over that in the works Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland.

In The Loop

In what has to be the greatest political send up since Wag the Dog, director Armando Iannucci loosely adapts characters and ideas from the British TV series "The Thick Of It" (which I've not seen but soon will) and weaves together a rapid-fire, tart-tongued tale of global government's self-importance and aggrandizing. The jokes fly fast and take no prisoners, making this a comedy surely worth rewatching as there's no way to catch each dig, jab, and retort between these childish political powerhouses.

Peter Capaldi (reprising his role from the series) stars as foul mouthed task master media consort Malcolm Tucker who flies off the handle upon hearing a sound bite from low man on the Brit gov totem pole Simon Foster (Tom Hollander) overstepping bounds with regards to a potential war in the Middle East. The sound bite, suggesting a war to be "unforeseeable," gets the inept Foster invited to committees and pushed around as an "internationalizing agent" by anti-war American official Karen Clark (Mimi Kennedy). Likewise, Clark's rival (David Rasche) coopts a sound bite of him stating we should "climb the mountain of conflict" and equally courts him to be a spokesman for the war. Foster, himself, hasn't the foggiest idea of what to do or how to behave. And as he's dragged to D.C., the UN, and everywhere his political ego wants him to be, he learns more and more the power of media to rewrite his every word . The amazing ensemble is rounded out by Anna Chlumsky as newbie aide Liza Weld, James Gandolfini as a tough-guy general, Gina McKee as the whip-smart and underrated Judy, Chris Addison as the self-involved and bumbling assistant to Foster, and Paul Higgins as the even more foul mouthed than Malcolm consort, Jamie. Steve Coogan also pops up in something of a slight cameo as an "everyman" trying to get a government wall fixed before it crushes his elderly mother's greenhouse, a complication that no character cares about in the least.

The film is truly dynamite and lightning fast, delivering hilarious, sharply scripted laughs and ultimately settling in on a surprisingly dark finale which does not alter the film's non-stop tone but simply allows for real character growth and despair. It is as smart and funny a comedy as I have seen all year.

Grade: A

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

World famous wizard Harry Potter (Daniel Radcliffe), now in the throes of tabloid fame, must once again return to Hogwarts for his sixth term. His mission: to befriend an eccentric professor (Jim Broadbent) an extract from him a long lost memory that the ailing Professor Dumbledore (Michael Gambon) feels might finally uncover the secrets to Lord Voldemort’s true plans. In its sixth outing, the Harry Potter franchise remains very respectably in dark territory, terrain grisly enough that one imagines only such a built-in audience behemoth could possibly get away with it on such a large platform. The story grows graver, more intense and rightfully so, as the series ripens into a mature epic fantasy from the early seeds of middling kid fluff. In the summer of Transformers, Potter stands as a remarkably rich, human, and briefly warm and funny alternative to the passing crowd pleasers whose hold will no doubt wan and whose legacy will likely be nil.

It’s that respect for the endeavor itself and its creators which makes it so disappointing for me to note that Half-Blood Prince, though successfully in line with preceding films in terms of mood and tone, is something of a minor blip on the Potter radar. It sets up so much and covers so much ground that at film’s end you wonder if you’ve really just watched a preface to a subsequent feature. It’s not entirely the film’s fault. The sixth book of the J.K. Rowling series has several truly powerful moments but under close inspection is an awful lot like a big tease for what is to come, a masterful setup that works best with the understanding that better things will follow.

The talented cast, most particularly the core trio of Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint, keep the integrity of the characters at the forefront even when the plot feels forced or strangely adapted. A wash of contrived 90210-ish romances (adapted from the novel with only the silliest and most superficial bits left standing) and a general sense of listless plot churning causes Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince to be a tremendous step down from its predecessor Order of the Phoenix with its epic scope and strong linear focus. The film is an often dissatisfying mix of moments that hew too closely to the text (very ploddingly so, and with very little cinematic spark) and invented scenes so useless or misleading you wonder why they even bothered. It’s a lackluster viewing experience but the film is undoubtedly watchable, well-acted, and exceedingly stylish.

What cannot be denied here is the visual magic created by director David Yates. He is the most grounded of the Potter directors thus far (or at least neck and neck with series-changing Alfonso Cuarón). He makes special effects feel grand, yet incorporated, and along with cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel he composes action sequences of startling beauty and terror. Harry’s near under-water grave in the final act, for example, is a multi-dimensional set piece that combines effects, acting, and subtle uses of light and dark to bring Rowling’s prose to life with stunning power.

In the long run, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is no great atrocity. It stands as a so-so lull in franchise history that bridges the explosive fifth installment and the sure to be fantastic final chapter. It’s near impossible to judge it as its own film, as Potter has uniquely set out to create a distinct 8 film arc (as opposed to producing endless standalone sequels). The film does no harm to the franchise’s legacy but will undoubtedly not be the segment for which it is best remembered.

Grade: C+

DVD Pick: [●REC]

The 2007 Spanish horror flick [●REC] from directors Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza far exceeds anything that has been produced stateside in the past two years (including the tepid English language remake, Quarantine). Manuela Velasco stars as a bored reporter from a cheap TV show who is trailing the crew at a local firehouse and accidentally ends up in a mysterious apartment building infected with a deadly virus. The film features faux documentary style photography, something like the breakout Blair Witch Project, but with much better results. The talented directors know how to utilize their camera and create subtle, rich, and deeply chilling images that truly could not be captured with the traditional 36mm stock that so many people begged for watching Cloverfield. It truly doesn't feel gimmicky here but artistically and skillfully used, with the space just beyond the frame serving as an eerie unknown for the viewer and the desperate cries to "look behind you" a first person participatory experience. True terror done right. Seriously, check this one out.

Bruno

In what must be the most shocking and audacious American film in recent memory, Sacha Baron Cohen solidifies his status as gross out comedy’s golden god, and rare intellectual auteur. The brainiest, bawdiest, most jaw-dropping-est festival of dirty jokes and cultural satire since Borat broke, Bruno is like nothing else since, and certainly equal to its predecessor. There are more gasps per frame than any film I can think of and at least a handful of moments so drenched in muckraking social satire that you wonder how a single mind could conceive of both pieces of the puzzle. Director Larry Charles (Borat) is once again at the helm documenting Cohen’s outrageous behavior, partly scripted and partly improvised with real (unaware) participants in the fiction. Hewing close to the Borat mold, Bruno, the flamboyantly gay Austrian TV host, makes the exodus to America to learn how to become a big time celebrity. The result is an absolutely hilarious and uncannily perceptive piece documenting the hell of American celebrity media and the nation’s ongoing discomfort and homophobia.

The film lures in celebrity stooges such as “Gastineau Girls” socialite Brittny Gastineau (yes, that’s really how she spells her name) and “American Idol” judge Paula Abdul (who, in a film highlight, brags about her charity work while using a Mexican worker as her personal stool) and also engages in some of the most uncomfortable and unbelievable footage imaginable when Cohen travels to Israel to “solve the conflict with Palestine.” The results are too good to spoil even in passing and must be seen to be believed. The film climaxes most perfectly in an extended and absolutely fantastic sequence exposing the nadir of America’s cultural muck: machismo drenched homophobes attending a cage match. “My Heart Will Go On” will never be the same.

Grade: A

Ode to the Indie

Happy 4th

R.I.P. Karl Malden