Indie Cliché

2010-01-09T00:53:00.002-05:00

My Top 10 Of 2009 (In Alphabetical Order)

2010-01-08T21:46:00.022-05:00

There was never a romantic comedy more suitable for or telling about the 00s than (500) Days of Summer. It’s artificial and candy-coated yet knows this. It contains flirtatious sequences in big box department stores in which the central couple (Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel) play house to the sound of pop songs on a floor sample arrangement of kitchen furniture and appliances (all with the price tags still on them). They mime “family dinner” and “happy ending” but never get to dig in. The shuffle of memory is a key theme. The way it was vs. the way they thought it was. The reality vs. the rom-com vision. It may be hard to imagine such a twee film being one of the year’s best but it is a pure entertainment treasure and beneath that, a knowing yet lovestruck satire of romance both at the movies and in the modern world.

Coming of age was never as stylish as in Lone Scherfig’s winning adaptation of Lynn Barber’s memoir about a young girl in 1960s London who is seduced by an older man with a posh lifestyle and ample mystique. Carey Mulligan is positively radiant as young Jenny, a lover of culture, music, and all things French. She is wise beyond her years and yet positively girlish at the same time. The supporting players are equally adept, including Peter Sarsgaard as Jenny’s suitor, David, Alfred Molina and Cara Seymour as her equally enamored parents, and Dominic Cooper and wild card Rosamund Pike as David’s charming yet shady pals. An Education is a vibrant, sophisticated, fast-moving drama with tremendous appeal and brilliantly effective storytelling. It feels classic and timeless, as if it could very well have been made for the era in which it is set. What's most refreshing is that this is a smart movie about smart people who make real choices, real errors in judgment, and ultimately suffer real consequences. Yet the script by Nick Hornby is full of wit, sharp insight, and a playful sense of adventure. It's not preachy or sullen but rather gently revelatory in the way it navigates true drama with all the humor and joy intact.

Oh, Wes Anderson. Just when we thought we knew you by heart, you go and throw us a curve ball. Sure, the rapid fire comedy is as fast as ever. Yes, the characters are plucky losers with delusions of grandeur and a secret hurt inside. Of course, that Rolling Stones song comes in just where you expect it. Yet for all the ways in which Fantastic Mr. Fox is by the book Anderson goodness, it still stands as a unique and remarkable transformation into an animation auteur. Fox is easily Anderson’s most joyful film. It begins and ends with a smile and a song. It has all the sense of caper that Bottle Rocket had, the family catharsis of Tenenbaums (minus the suicide attempt), and more than enough jaunty weirdness to top Steve Zissou. A kids’ movie for big kids with young hearts, Fantastic Mr. Fox is an animated gem complete with stunning stop-motion work and enough joy and heart to become a classic.

The greatest film produced yet on the subject of the Iraq war is also the year’s greatest exercise in suspense. Director Kathryn Bigelow has crafted a gripping, unfiltered look at war that delivers as both a tense thriller and a complex psychological drama detailing the day by day dealings of an Iraq military bomb unit (Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie, and Brian Geraghty). In several expertly shot sequences we get the panicked, adrenaline rush that comes from being so near to deadly weapons on a daily basis. And in additional material we get to explore the minds of the men living this seemingly unbearable daily grind, particularly Renner’s Ssgt. James who is a renegade risk taker built for the work at hand and unable to cope with ordinary life on the outside. There’s no telling what to expect or where the film will go and it’s this sense of impossible, constant terror which makes The Hurt Locker such a unique and unmissable tour de force.

The 21^st century’s answer to Dr. Strangelove, In the Loop is a positively daffy and biting political satire from the UK (based on the TV series “The Thick Of It”). The basic premise involve a low level employee of the British government (Tom Hollander) finding himself as the central catalyst for a major international war. 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.

If there are limits to the cinema, somebody forgot to tell Quentin Tarantino. His epic WWII murder fantasy Inglourious Basterds is a take no prisoners, do as we please thriller that operates under the assumption that all things are possible in the celluloid universe. Moreover, Basterds contains some of the iconic director’s very best work, namely a series of long, highly suspenseful conversations which alternate power between players to the point of dramatic exhaustion before typically erupting in a burst of climactic action. But for all the war and violence, Basterds’ deeper function seems to be as a love letter to the European cinema of the time. Tarantino has painstakingly detailed the era. He both names names (Leni Riefenstahl, Emil Jannings, etc.) and cites details (flammable film stock) which one would otherwise pick up in a film history lesson. Not only does the movie’s climax take place in a movie house, but the very nature of its ending speculates about the character and capacity of film in such a way as to make this the year’s ultimate meta-movie and one of the most sweeping, excellent, and action-packed pieces that truly invoke the form in all its glory.

Writer/composer/actor Stew crafted one of Broadway’s most innovative and overlooked musicals in Passing Strange, a revolutionary stage show which had a thunderous but all too short run at the Belasco Theatre and earned only one Tony award (Book Of A Musical). Thankfully, director Spike Lee recognized that Stew’s show was more than just another midtown tuner. Not only is the format unique (a narrative rock concert) but the sheer tenacity of the show will blow your mind. It loosely tells the story of Stew’s own life with humor, attitude, and heartbreaking sincerity. But dig deeper and there is another layer of complexity. Stew has made a stage show which ponders art in all its forms. It speculates about the power of performance and the way in which art, artifice, and the genuine article interchange unexpectedly. It doesn’t just break the “fourth wall” but screams through it, allowing characters to interact with the narrator, the narrator to interact with the audience, and the band to simply jam all night. The musical numbers are brazen and addictive. They give the kind of buzz all great rock & roll gives. You’d think a stage show would be stifled by the act of its being filmed but Passing Strange remains a wonder. You may not be able to feel the electric guitars shake the floor under your feet the way they did at the Belasco, but you can still appreciate the amazing score, performances, and story. And the raw emotion of the show’s incredible final performance can be felt miles away from the screening room. Standout number “Keys” is not just the greatest musical sequence put to film this year; it’s a religious experience. Is it alright? Yeah, it’s alright.

“Coen-y” may be a word we use to describe kooky, kitschy, Americana drenched screwball romps (and the occasional bleak oddity) but there is hardly anything Coen-y about the Coen brothers’ latest film, A Serious Man. It is personal, serious, devoid of the Coens’ repertory players, and completely on a level of its own. And unlike other directors who depart from the norm so wildly that they transform into flavorless, point-and-shoot drones, Joel and Ethan Coen have used this departure to blossom into full form. A Serious Man reinterprets their style and typical content in greater shades of gray, and with more soul than we could have possibly imagined. Michael Stuhlbarg stars as the Job-like central figure, a father who loses his wife, his health, and his money in such quick succession as to test the very fabric of his being. It is a story of faith, family, and the way in which all men fall.

If Howard Hawks and Cary Grant could return to make a comedy for the Google generation, they would surely create something a lot like Up In The Air. Director Jason Reitman’s third consecutive comedy knockout proves to be his sharpest and funniest yet. George Clooney stars as self-isolating, elitist, know-it-all Ryan Bingham, a professional firer who travels the country informing people that they have lost their job and giving seminars about relinquishing oneself of the burdens of home and family. He meets two women who will change his life: saucy Alex (Vera Farmiga) whom he seduces via platinum membership cards (she’s equally on the go) and up-and-comer Natalie (Anna Kendrick) whose plot to take the company’s firing practice digital may end Ryan’s always off the ground lifestyle. The banter is never stale, the characters are never false, and most importantly it all goes down so smoothly and with such vintage panache that it single-handedly reinvigorates the waning love in all of us for Hollywood, movie stars, and the still beating heart of mainstream American cinema.

This year’s other decade long labor of love from a visual pioneer involving mystical creatures and imaginative effects. Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are is a masterpiece of whimsy and emotional distress. The film expands upon the book the Maurice Sendak with a script from Jonze and author Dave Eggers which retains the book’s sense of adventure but also develops an emotionally, visually rich world in which monsters and children are broken-hearted, free-footed friends on the lam from the stricter social order, and moms everywhere. It is a stunning film with a deeply felt, loosely plotted sensibility that actually makes it one of the bolder studio features of the decade. Thankfully, it is a rounding success and one of the year’s greatest films.

Crazy Heart

2009-12-31T14:25:00.007-05:00

First time director Scott Cooper brings to life the novel by Thomas Cobb with a central performance by Jeff Bridges as washed up country star Bad Blake that is rightfully garnering the veteran actor a great deal of Oscar buzz. Bridges is a hulking, soulful mess in the film, balancing the passion of musical performance with the jaded edge of a star past his prime. Maggie Gyllenhaal also does fine work as Jean Craddock, a local reporter enamored of Bad who quickly falls for the singer's rough charms. Crazy Heart charts the couples growing relationship, Bad's failing career and lifelong addictions, and the road to redemption ahead of him. Colin Farrell and Robery Duvall round out the cast in modest performances as Bad's former guitarist turned country superstar Tommy Sweet and Bad's longtime friend and bar owner respectively.

Crazy Heart is by definition a small film. It's built around conversations and life choices. Characters get in a room together and we observe their interactions. It's brilliantly done and so simple and authentic it would be easy to overlook the power of its skillful writing and winning performances. It's no small feat to compose such fully realized characters and craft a compelling narrative out of their simple interactions. Crazy Heart is a compelling, whiskey-drenched story of love and loss that is as bittersweet as reality and as easy to settle into as ordinary life.

The movie is also backed by a strong set of bluesy country rock songs penned by T Bone Burnett and Stephen Bruton. The duo create an extensive and impressive back catalog for Bad Blake's live shows that's wholly believable as the roster for an iconic country superstar. The film also features a moving theme, "The Weary Kind," penned by Burnett and Ryan Bingham. Bridges is incredibly adept at performing on stage both in voice and in presence. He gives the impression of being an old pro so easily that the performance becomes an entrancing act of artificial reality. Farrell too nicely handles the musical side of the film as a believably slick modern country crooner. The music only adds to the atmosphere of the already strongly rendered dramatic portions of the film, making this one of the strongest musical features of the year.

Grade: A-

The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus

2009-12-31T12:59:00.005-05:00

Director Terry Gilliam brings us yet another oddball tale of fantasy and morality in a very neat, visually exciting package. The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus tells the tale of the weary and immortal Dr. Parnassus (Christopher Plummer), a disciple of imagination and storytelling in a century's long battle with the devil (Tom Waits) who has come to claim the soul of his daughter, Valentina (Lily Cole), on her 16th birthday (the price of one of their many wagers). To avoid losing his daughter, Parnassus agrees to yet another wager. He takes his flagging, dilapidated travelling show on the road along with companions Percy (Verne Troyer) and Anton (Andrew Garfield) on a quest to gather up righteous souls through the use of his enchanted magical mirror. The first to five souls wins. Along the way, the crew picks up the mysterious Tony (Heath Ledger in his final role) who upsets the long established traditions of the imaginarium and may have ulterior motives of his own.

Gilliam presents a fast-moving, fun-loving, "put on a show" type energy throughout most of the film which makes up for some of the rickety narrative components. It is, after all, a fantasy and a little botched logic is of no consequence. What's ever present is the weird charm of the imaginarium and its ragtag collection of characters. It's a form of entertainment so dated and desperate that you can't help but feel misplaced nostalgia for the weird sideshow antics they perform. The "behind the mirror" sequences of surreal fantasy are uneven but mostly fun. They're actually more interesting for what they bring out in the characters than for the colorful visuals which are more playful and silly than uniquely captivating. One of the most interesting and oddly seamless devices is the replacement of Ledger (who died mid filming) with a trio of peers when his character Tony slips into the world of imagination. Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell all pick up where Ledger leaves off with great class, honoring the actor with great performances which compliment his work perfectly. The process also stresses the two-faced quality of the shifty Tony and brings to the forefront his desires to be someone else entirely.

The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus is a lively, inventive, fun romp which carries on with great energy up to a fairly predictable but nonetheless satisfying conclusion. It's not Gilliam's best film but it offers a concentrated dose of some of the qualities which have made him such an admirable pioneer in years past.

Grade: B

DVD Pick: Jennifer's Body

2009-12-29T13:25:00.001-05:00

In hindsight, Jennifer's Body never really could have been anything more than a cult hit, which hopefully it one day will be. Body is a rare thing: a horror film with a female perspective. Best friends Jennifer (Megan Fox) and Needy (Amanda Seyfried) are pinned against one another in the aftermath of Jennifer's abduction by renegade emo rockers and eventual sacrifice to the devil (to the tune of "867-5309/Jenny," no less). The result being a succubus possessed Jen who feeds on the bodies of teenage boys. Consider it Heathers with The Exorcist spiked in for good measure. Writer Diablo Cody and director Karyn Kusama have crafted a nifty piece of pop horror with underlying wit and smarts, painting one high school girl's descent into darkness with broad horror overtones that grab at the Twilight generation without losing the core allegory for abuse and subsequent destruction.

Nine

2009-12-29T00:00:00.000-05:00

Daniel Day-Lewis, the unstoppable master of all things thespian, somehow manages to transition from transformative character actor to leading man of a movie musical in Nine. Granted, his Guido Contini is a tortured genius film director with fantastical musical memories and not exactly a Fred Astaire-type song and dance man. Still, the two-time Oscar winner shows off yet another layer of depth here as he brushes off a pleasant singing voice and some modest hoofing skills in director Robert Marshall's largely theatrical movie about the cinema. Though Nine is being adapted for the screen, Marshall envisions it as something like a stage show mixed with visual snippets of story and information. Footage of actual narrative blends with basic soundstage dance numbers rather than integrated song and dance. The results are mixed but mostly charming based on the sheer force and energy of each song's delivery.

Guido is also matched by an ensemble of extraordinary Hollywood women doing some of their best, most playful work. Throughout the film, Guido, a womanizing, self-destructive cad, juggles visions of his wife (Marion Cotillard), his mistress (Penelope Cruz), his muse (Nicole Kidman), his saucy friend and colleague (Judi Dench), a flirtatious reporter (Kate Hudson), his childhood seductress (Fergie), and his dead mother (Sophia Loren). Each of the 7 women get their chance to shine in a fiery solo and together they present a map of Guido's darkly self-serving mind.

It would be fair to criticize Rob Marshall's Nine as an indulgent, over-the-top collection of disconnected musical moments. The narrative (based on the Broadway musical of the same name which itself is based on 8 1/2) flies free and only casually touches on key plot points. And while the "musical fantasy" format worked perfectly in Marshall's breakthrough Chicago, the performance numbers here (also imagined) mix less neatly with the narrative dialogue scenes. All of this is true and yet the performances by the massive big-name ensemble are so wonderful and Marshall's visual style as a stage director is so strong that the film still works far better than it logically should. By film's end, Marshall's odd visual rhythms start to feel precise and the unhummable, melodramatic score (written by Maury Yeston) starts to fully develop its charms. This is a transporting effort which, if resisted, will be grating but when indulged can be a wholly satisfying visual and musical spectacle.

Grade: B+

The Lovely Bones

2009-12-28T18:05:00.004-05:00

Director Peter Jackson's well-intentioned adaptation of The Lovely Bones, the popular novel by Alice Sebold, is a visual treat but an emotional dud. The film depicts the tragic death and afterlife of young Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan) who is stalked and killed by an eerie neighbor (Stanley Tucci). While her parents, played by Mark Wahlberg and Rachel Weisz, try to uncover the truth of what happened to their daughter, Susie explores a magical world in between our earth and her future heaven. She observes and interacts, in small ways, with her grieving family as both parties learn to cope with what has transpired.

The first third or so of the film is a very stunning and well-acted tale of foreboding obsession, leading to a chilling end. It's in the latter part of the film that Jackson desperately loses his way. Splitting the narrative between Susie's dream-like, CGI rendered other world and the very grim real world, the film becomes a disjointed mess. Character motivations become questionable, style takes over from substance, and the eventual resolution is an unsatisfying, inconsequential throwaway complete with creepy possessed teenager makeout sessions and an afterthought punishment of Tucci's sinister villain that offers no closure. The tone skips all over from a teen fantasy, to a goofy Grandma Lynn montage (starring a boozy Susan Sarandon), to a dangerous murder mystery. Thankfully, the cast remains game in spite of all the missteps, namely 15 year-old Ronan who carries the film with aplomb and the versatile Stanley Tucci who gives a chilling performance that grounds the film with vivid and believable terror. Despite the fact that several sequences in this film are utterly breathtaking, the overall picture is a mixed bag that only gets worse as it goes on until none of the characters or the story really matter anymore.

Grade: C+

Bad Lieutenant: Port Of Call New Orleans

2009-12-27T23:43:00.005-05:00

Eclectic director Werner Herzog makes a confounding detour with a loose remake of the 1992 Abel Ferrara film Bad Lieutenant starring Harvey Keitel. Set in a post-Katrina New Orleans, the new Lieutenant stars Nicolas Cage in a hammy, scenery chewing performance as Terence McDonagh, a coke addicted lieutenant with less than legitimate police procedures who is investigating the drug related murder of a family. The cast also features Val Kilmer as McDonagh's partner, Eva Mendes as his junkie prostitute girlfriend, rapper Xzibit as prime suspect Big Fate, and some small character work by talented actors such as Michael Shannon, Fairuza Balk, and Jennifer Coolidge.

Determining whether this is a good film or a bad film is a near impossibility. In so many respects it is an absolutely awful film. The film is manic, random, and fueled by a dark sense of chaos. Every actor is playing at the top of their crazy register. And there are several completely ridiculous scenes based on the central character's hallucinatory habits, including one with an unbearably long close-up of imaginary iguanas. Yet weirdly it is those same ludicrous qualities which might make Bad Lieutenant enjoyable for some viewers. The film is a pure pulp spectacle and seems to be consciously constructed as such. In other words, the kooky crime antics and nutso performance by Cage all play into a fairly consistent vision by Herzog which may captivate audiences with its weirdness. The spectacle just doesn't carry enough actual drama, humor, or suspense to make this worth seeing all that much. This is definitely a niche work for gunfight lovers and gritty cop gurus.

Grade: C

Up In The Air

2009-12-27T17:09:00.006-05:00

Director Jason Reitman continues his mastery of the American comedy with yet another winning, mainstream, character-driven effort that is as timely as it is perfectly classic. George Clooney steps seamlessly into the Cary Grant-type dapper cad role he was born to play as Ryan Bingham, a carefree soul who fires people for a living and does a little part-time lecturing about the unnecessary baggage of a home and family. He strikes up a shallow flirtation with an equally commerce hungry woman named Alex (Vera Farmiga) and lives his life with no strings attached. His great ambition is to amass 10 million frequent flier miles and join an elite club of travel snobs to have done so. Plans go awry when whip smart Cornell grad Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick resurrecting essential and beautifully crass elements of her breakthrough character from Rocket Science) proposes a cost effective reformatting of the company that would take workers off the road and have them do their firing duties via web cam. Bingham's objections to the system, which would ground his loose and unburdened lifestyle, leads his boss (Jason Bateman) to stick him on the road with Keener in an attempt to give her the work experience necessary to address Bingham's own complaints.

The film is a savvy blend of comedy and drama, sentiment and snark. It's so elementary and yet it stands out among most modern comedies as one of the few to really invest in characters and story instead of perpetrating low grade stupidity and begging for cheap laughs. Reitman has managed a natural flow that both feels realistic and maintains a certain radiant sheen that makes this as strong an effort to wear it's Hollywood glamour on its sleeve all year. Reitman couldn't not have sensed 1940s Grant in the writing of Ryan Bingham or missed the neatly cynical way his incorporation of depressing "firing testimonials" mirrors Rob Reiner's "real couple testimonials" in the structure of When Harry Met Sally. Many decades worth of romance and comedy get wisely condensed in this fine feature which still undoubtedly adds its own sharp, unique and particularly unmissable spin on all the tropes it recycles. Up In The Air is a moving, funny, and highly enjoyable film that will hopefully become as much of a breakout hit as Reitman's previous comic wonder, Juno. With each of his 3 films, the director has surpassed expectations and proved that fast, feeling, and funny films are far from lost on modern film audiences.

Grade: A

Avatar

2009-12-24T01:41:00.014-05:00

Avatar is a much-hype passion project for director James Cameron (Aliens, Terminator 2, Titanic) with roots that reportedly extend as far back as 20 years in the director's life and an astronomical budget which has been rumored to be in the hundreds of millions. Despite all that effort and all that money, the product is a straight dud. While Avatar is technically impressive, it fails as cinema.

The film tells the story of paralyzed war vet Jack Sully (Sam Worthington) who gets conveniently swept into a top secret mission to another planet when his genius twin brother is murdered, leaving him as the only person with the biological makeup to operate the required avatar machinery needed for the job. On the planet of Pandora, a species known as the Na'vi have been recently infiltrated by the human race. In an attempt to meld cultures, the humans create Na'vi bodies for themselves to virtually inhabit in order to better interact with the natives, a tribal society of nature loving warriors with an infinite connection to their home planet. The reckless Jack somehow manages to draw the attention of Na'vi princess Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) and become accepted into the tribe. Eventually the humans' strictly commercial interests conflict with the Na'vi way of life and Jack must choose between his species and the new family he has discovered.

With a script more careful to overexplain made up traditions and languages than to make any sort of rational sense, Avatar plays like a very indulgent space fable designed by people with too much heart and not enough brains. Moreover, it's a very grotesquely simplified feature which pins the ultra pure and innocent native Na'vi against a vision of humanity so outrageously exaggerated and cartoonish that somehow an easy target such as American corporate greed somehow manages to not get a fair shake in this mess. Sigourney Weaver plays Grace, a rare good-hearted human who runs the scientific portion of the avatar program. Meanwhile, actors Giovanni Ribisi and Stephen Lang accept the task of playing an executive and a colonel respectively who are each so disgusting as to commit genocide without a thought. These are not nuanced, complex characters. Neither are the Na'vi in most respects. Certainly, Cameron crafted a very specific history and world for them to inhabit but they are largely interchangeable, dull and lacking motivation. There's no clear moment where Neytiri falls for Jack. She just does. In a montage. Because she's the female character in the movie and that's what the female characters does. Jack too is a bit of a blank slate who makes radical life choices on a near whim and then fights to the death in a battle that comes too late to really matter.

For all the fine craft of Cameron's visual wonderland, this is a clunky overlong narrative burdened by poor writing and a preachy tone so bombarding as to irritate even apolitical ears. Viewers may still find it worth the experience to witness what Cameron has done, but anyone expecting an effective and well-composed feature will be sadly disappointed.

Grade: D

A Single Man

2009-12-22T00:00:00.000-05:00

Fashion designer Tom Ford delivers a very accomplished film debut in A Single Man which stars Colin Firth as George Falconer, a heartbroken college professor mourning the loss of his long time partner, Jim (Matthew Goode), in 1962 Los Angeles. A broken man, George proceeds to plan his own suicide and sets out to live his very last day. He gives a particularly passionate, unprofessional, and unjaded lecture in his college classroom and unintentionally inspires interest from the sexually ambiguous Kenny (Nicholas Hoult) who follows George after class to pick his brain and invite himself to coffee. Julianne Moore gives a playful performance as a lush drunk named Charley who is madly in love with George to no avail. They share a dance and a drink and contemplate their intertwining misguided lives. Whether George will go through with his plan remains a question mark as fresh elements of inspiration begin to shake him from the merciless pain of his grief.

Firth is utterly smashing in a very un-Collin Firth performance as a vulnerable soul with a posh exterior and cheeky underlying twist. He's charming by all counts during the lighter comic bits and even more effective in the film's quiet, meditative moments of which there are many more. Director Ford shapes the film into a moody, melancholic piece of nostalgia enamored of 60s culture and fashion yet equally drenched in the morose sentiments of a fading central figure. Ford's tone and style are exquisitely consistent yet perhaps distracting to some. He lends a heavy hand to the feature, using stylistic flourishes such as draining or filling his frames with color to suggest fluctuations between radiant joy and despairing pallor in the mind of the main character. A Single Man has the indubitable characteristic of being an "art film" and therefore will likely appeal only to a niche audience but willing spectators will be justly rewarded.

Grade: A-

DVD Pick: (500) Days Of Summer

2009-12-21T22:59:00.003-05:00

Director Marc Webb's sly, classic in the making rom-com, (500) Days Of Summer, penned by Scott Neustadter and 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

Broken Embraces

2009-12-21T20:47:00.008-05:00

Director Pedro Almodóvar returns with Broken Embraces (Los Abrazos Rotos) a visually stunning homage to the classic works of Alfred Hitchcock. The film opens in present day Madrid with blind screenwriter Mateo Blanco (Lluís Homar) coping with his disability and living as a "new man" under the pseudonym Harry Caine. In flashbacks we meet the stunning Lena (Penélope Cruz), the tragic mistress of fabulously wealthy mogul Ernesto Martel (José Luis Gómez) who monitors her every move. The jealous lover even goes as far as to employ his teenage son (Rubén Ochandiano) to film the set of Mateo's new film for fear that the director will fall for his new muse, Lena. Together the pair make the comedy Chicas y Maletas and fall madly in love in the process. What emerges is a vicious power struggle between the two men vying for the dazzling beauty's attention that leads to a very unfortunate end.

Despite the uniformly wonderful performances, the film is really a tag team effort between Penélope Cruz and her mentor Almodovar. Cruz gives a wonderful old Hollywood glamour performance that consciously echoes everything from beauty icons Audry Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe to the multi-layered complexity of Kim Novak in Vertigo with both camp and soul. Lena is a put upon starlet who acts her every effort in both in her life as a trophy mistress and on film as a beaming ingenue. Cruz manages to comfortably shoulder both the kitsch of the over the top wigs and the dark emotion of Lena's wounded soul and body. In return Almodovar films her with absolutely immodest passion. He constructs elaborate mise-en-scène which frames her in the shadow of still life portraits or at the mercy of painted guns and knifes. Her stasis and trauma are as much visually expressed through the camera as they are suggested in Cruz's quietly broken expressions. At its best, the piece touches pure cinema and yet it too often falls into folly and lackadaisical contrivance. This is most especially true in the present day framework which bungles the stirring magic of the Hitchcock-ian flashback. The film is so stunning as to be unmissable but also too sloppy to truly consider a masterpiece.

Grade: B+

The Road

2009-12-13T19:14:00.012-05:00

Having directed the 2005 Western-styled Australian drama The Proposition, director John Hilcoat is no stranger to expressing a dark, dystopian portrait of ragtag renegade life. In The Road, he brings a similar unflinching eye and knack for visually elegant devestation to an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's acclaimed novel. Viggo Mortensen gives a riveting and raw performance as the unnamed "Man" who travels a desolate post-apocalyptic Earth in search of food and clothing along with his young son, "The Boy" (relative newcomer Kodi Smit-McPhee in a wise beyond his years breakthrough role). The plot is slim yet captivating. It encompasses a series of episodic encounters of increasing intensity in which father and son combat their inner demons as well as very real, devolving human cannibals who search the road for fresh prey. The ensemble includes exceptional work by a number of actors in small roles, including Robert Duvall, Guy Pearce, Molly Parker, Michael K. Williams, Garret Dillahunt, and Charlize Theron (as the family's deceased matriarch seen only in flashbacks).

The film is not a complete home run. It relies on generous, patient viewership and an openness to the opaque narrative. What is undeniable though is that the film builds itself beautifully into a collection of moments, some heartbreaking (the small joy of a post-apocalyptic Coca Cola), some inspiring ("The Boy" and his generous care for a lonely old traveler), some horrifying (Do you really want to know what's in a cannibal's basement?). There are sequences here that are truly unforgettable even if they fall very calmly into a lull of shifting, road tripping minimalism. The big picture is one of striking beauty and gripping intensity. It is a very brutal and unforgiving plunge into a not so unbelievable darkness which despite its distance from a modern society seems to call attention to a vile underside all too present even in the now. Still, McCarthy's story and Hilcoat's film hint also at a journey, one in which the peril faced along the road leads to a redemption (perhaps divine?) which serves as saving grace.

Grade: A-

DVD Pick: Bruno

2009-11-17T21:05:00.002-05:00

Fantastic Mr. Fox

2009-11-15T22:32:00.006-05:00

In his first foray into animation, Fantastic Mr. Fox, director Wes Anderson breathes fresh life into his familiar quirks. Adapting Roald Dahl's work of the same name, Anderson creates a vibrant underground world in which animal's combat a trio of food tycoons whose chickens, turkeys, and cider are too tasty to resist. The titular fox (voiced by George Clooney) betrays his contented family life with a wife (Meryl Streep) and son (Jason Schwartzman) to start up again with his old life of crime. In many ways he's not too far in pluck and deceptive spirit from scheming yet short-sighted Dignan from Anderson's breakthrough, Bottle Rocket. The multi-layered sets and deeply detailed frames that have become Anderson's visual trademark reappear here in stunning stop-motion imagery. The director finds ways to turn mineral deposits and running sewerage pipes into gorgeous set pieces and make rats, foxes, and opossums as engaging and vivid as all of his neurotic and vulnerable protagonists from film's past.

If anything, Wes Anderson's hyper-stylized, some say "cutesy" tone works all the more given the creative license of animation. The director's patented imagination runs wild. His bright gloss and busy sequences will simultaneously engage young children and astound adult audiences. This is one of the most visually spectacular and original animated film in a long while.

Grade: A

Precious: Based On The Novel Push By Sapphire

2009-11-14T21:12:00.011-05:00

The much-hyped little indie which took the festival circuit by storm is not exactly the feel good story big shot executive producers Tyler Perry and Oprah Winfrey would lead you to believe. It's a grueling, unrelenting cinema experience in which director Lee Daniels, a man who seems to know no restraint, bombards his audience with abuse after abuse against one innocent Harlem teen named Precious Jones. Make a list and check it twice. Incest! Beatings! Chicken theft! Nothing is off limits in this realer than real indie that all but begs you to cry and use the word "empowering" as you exit the theater. The film opens in the midst of violence and despair and very slowly lifts the burden until a pseudo-release arrives, but not with any sense satisfaction. There are no victories, no reliefs. As powerfully real as physical and sexual abuse might be, it's still a question of whether an audience will submit to being force fed shocking visuals without mercy for the full length of a feature film. Be assured, Precious will not be a fun or pleasant experience to view.

The film's central figure, Precious Jones (played with great presence and confidence by newcomer Gabourey Sidibe) is an illiterate teen, pregnant with her second child by her sexually abusive father, and living with her physically abusive mother, Mary (Mo'Nique in a role that's unquestionably startling and difficult to watch). She's aided by a new teacher at an alternative school (Paula Patton), the school's secretary (Sherri Shepherd), a generous nurse (Lenny Kravitz), and an invested social worker (Mariah Carey) in establishing new goals and finding her self worth.

The film's greatest virtue truly is its graphic, unflinching nature. The central topic is bold and there are moments in which the film mesmerizes not only with its brutality but with the way it captures the nuances of everyday life, humor and all. It is when it is in its simplest, purest form that the film really works wonders. It's director Lee Daniels' decadence of despair which clouds the moving central narrative with heavy-handed attempts to turn life into art. Consider the ridiculous amount of cheap looking montage that accompanies the very early revelation of Precious' rape by her father. Or the film's most emotionally draining moment: Mary's final assault on her daughter, which is made saccharine by ridiculous cutaways to childhood photos. If only these moments had stood alone the power would be felt more fully. Chopped up with film school instincts, they are significantly less than what they should be.

There's also the ever present issue of integrity vs. capital. At no point did I get the impression this was a film honoring those who have been abused in a similar fashion to Precious. Most times it felt like an ego stroke to fabulously wealthy talent so proud of themselves for flirting with "realness."At what point filming Mo'Nique's unshaven body hair or Mariah Carey's unmade-up face stops being a self-flattering exercise in capturing "real life" and starts becoming a serious film is sometimes hard to decipher. There are miraculous scenes of unflinching truth here made stronger by uniformly exceptional performances (even by Carey, dare we admit to it). There are just a few too many times in which reality (not "reality") shine through and the weirdly mocking sense of "Hey, let's play poor ugly people!" chews up the beauty of the film at hand. You can imagine the endless conversations had about exactly how "real" Carey should look. The kind of cheap clothes they could get her so she could be "real." How do "real" people talk (like Fran Drescher, apparently)? The attempts to strip away all artifice are so pronounced that they becomes equally artificial.

You cannot deny the power of so much of this material. I honestly believe the film works overall and has many great successes. Unfortunately, sometimes the packaging of this project, the tone and style set by director Lee Daniels, takes away from the power of the narrative and the vivid performances at the core of the film. Precious is a good film with a lot to say, but I do not think it is a great one.

Grade: B-

The Box

2009-11-14T20:52:00.005-05:00

Despite the popular opinion that The Box would be writer/director Richard Kelly's safe commercial sell-out film after producing two consecutive divisive cult gems (Donnie Darko and Southland Tales), the film actually fits very snugly within the emerging Kelly oeuvre. It's as weird or weirder than either of his previous films and despite a $30 million price tag and a trio of movie stars (Cameron Diaz, James Marsden, and Frank Langella) Box is exactly the weird little movie with overtones of apocalypse and science/religion slippage that Kelly might have produced working on a shoe string budget with an unfamiliar cast.

While the outcome is 100% Kelly, it's still a bit of a blah film. The most somber of his works, The Box clunks along somewhat groggily at times unwilling to spill narrative secrets yet unable to remain gripping in the face of ambiguity. The basic story (a couple is provided with a button by a mysterious stranger which, if pushed, will end the life of someone they do not know and reward them with $1 million) lasts somewhere around 30 minutes and every moment after that is another in which Kelly keeps the wheels turning but always with the faintest hint of desperation.

The film is bona fide B material, and Kelly may have wanted it that way. Despite moral implications and a few very well written speeches, The Box lives up to its "Twilight Zone" roots as a freak out paranoia fable that's good fun but no masterpiece. There are refreshingly old-fashioned elements to the story's suspense. It approaches horror from the realm of a drama rather than from a place of slasher exploitation. In the end, there's not a bit which is out of place. It's a clearly conceived vision from Kelly which is implausible and utterly bizarre but very comfortable at being exactly what it is, no more and no less. A home run, grade A film this is not but it is a solid, enjoyable thriller that will ironically end up being yet another Kelly cult fave.

Grade: B

DVD Pick: Up

2009-11-11T17:26:00.003-05:00

The latest from Disney’s unstoppable Pixar, Up, is by far one of its most exciting adventures. Not quite the meditative masterpiece that Wall-E was, the film is more story-driven and plumped with action. A few very welcome juvenile touches (talking dogs!) make it feel like kid fare but there are so many adult ripples that one wonders how much of this children would understand or appreciate. In classic Disney fashion, we open with a tragic death. And it is perhaps the truest and least candy-coated cartoon fatality. Neither animal, nor spectacle, it is a quiet and sophisticatedly rendered human death from natural causes.

We then speed ahead to the present where Carl Frederickson, still grieving the loss of his darling wife Ellie, has blossomed into a first class lovable curmudgeon. A former balloon salesman specializing in making things take flight, Frederickson chooses to adorn his rooftop with a bundle of helium floaters and take off into the sky to avoid a bleak nursing home fate. Having promised his wife in childhood to take her to South America, he decides this new adventure is the perfect opportunity to plant the house on the spot they had discussed for their whole lives (one involving the legend of an old-time adventurer who recurs in truly strange ways). Along the way, he accidentally picks up a boy scout named Russell, who nobly attempts to earn his “helping the elderly” badge. Together they somehow end up on a totally enjoyable yet utterly incomprehensible South American adventure involving a renegade explorer, an endangered bird, and an army of dog soldiers. All the while having the floating house tied to their backs. Quite a feat.

Where the Wild Things Are

2009-10-17T20:25:00.009-04:00

Visionary director Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation.) has made an instant-classic live-action children's film that could very well become the 21st century's The Wizard of Oz. His adaptation of author Maurice Sendak's iconic children's book Where the Wild Things Are is rich, dark, and challenging even to adult viewers. It establishes in its young protagonist Max a hero who is combustible, impulsive, and highly insecure. While most children's films create a precocious and idealistically noble tot wise beyond his or her years, Wild Things reprsents Max in all his broken, destructive glory and paints a picture (in scenes both real and surreal) of what it genuinely feels like to be a child.

Whether or not children will embrace the film is questionable. I simply can't help but hope that they will. It's a truly magical and mysterious film which feels delicately woven and yet utterly natural. To question a scene, a moment, a frame seems superfluous. It is what it is and it is best simply to allow it to wash over you. It is, after all, an experience film. The narrative is simple: rambunctious Max causes trouble at home and flees to a magical island where he meets the "wild things" who reflect to him his own animal anxieties. Plot is not a major component here, nor should it be. It's a film about irrational feelings, sensory experiences, and gradual transitions. It is subtle and beautiful both in its gentle story and stunning visual style. Jonze's decision to portray the titular creatures through the use of elaborate puppet suits rather than CGI makes this a decidedly timeless film which tickles the imagination. It's a brave choice which pays off tremendously in making the audience feel for the giant, furry beasts who are almost certainly imaginary even in the narrative space of the film.

Ultimately, Spike Jonze's dreamy, gold-tinged euphoric adolescent fantasia will be a love it or hate it experience based on whether the moody haze of the film is found intoxicating or simply dull. There is no bare bones plot to keep the stragglers at bay. It will either grip you or leave you at the starting gate. Either way, there's doubtless a film with more nerve and raw passion to be released all year. That such a gorgeous, non-commercial masterpiece has managed to open in 3,500 theaters seems miraculous. A treat for everyone nationwide.

Grade: A

An Education

2009-10-17T18:12:00.007-04:00

Director Lone Scherfig's coming of age drama, An Education, is a crackling account of one 16 year-old girl's liaison with an older man in 1960s London. Jenny, the teen in question, is not a mindless moppet but rather a free-spirited burgeoning intellectual with a penchant for all things French and an aspiration to attend Oxford. She's portrayed by actress Carey Mulligan in a performance so rich, natural, and fully-realized that the young Brit has found herself a sudden stateside star in the making. She's aided by a full ensemble of impressive players, including Peter Sarsgaard (as lover David), Alfred Molina and Cara Seymour (as Jenny's concerned parents), Dominic Cooper and Rosamund Pike (as David's suspicious and alluring pals), Olivia Williams (as doting teacher Ms. Stubbs), Emma Thompson (as Jenny's school's headmistress), and Happy-Go-Lucky's Sally Hawkins (in a scene which will break all hearts).

The film's script, adapted by Nick Hornby from a memoir by Lynn Barber, is full of wit, sharp insight, and a playful sense of adventure. It's not preachy or sullen but rather gently revelatory in the way it navigates true drama with all the humor and joy intact. The relationship between Jenny and David is allowed to have both charm and squirm, and the latter character's persona (a slick con man at best) is a tight rope walk of complex layers and manipulation. David offers young Jenny a world of opportunity complete with posh concerts, art auctions, and a trip to Paris. The young lady is then placed between worlds, wanting only the lavish luxury David offers but still obligated to a family which has dedicated themselves to her academic pursuits.

What's most refreshing is that this is a smart movie about smart people who make real choices, real errors in judgment, and ultimately suffer real consequences. It stands apart as a sophisticated, yet by no means stale, character drama that feels plucked from another era (perhaps its own period). It explores ordinary life and complication with great nuance.

Grade: A-

DVD Pick: Drag Me to Hell

2009-10-13T16:47:00.002-04:00

Drag Me to Hell - director Sam Raimi's highly anticipated return to horror - explodes onto the screen in very fine form. In a nod to older works (including his own Evil Dead franchise), Raimi opens with a vintage Universal logo as a stylistic and tonal indicator. This is a an adrenaline fueled roller coaster ride of a horror piece that is committed to hard scares and good fun and has absolutely nothing (NOTHING) to do with tourists who get lost in Europe and end up having viking milkmaids skin them alive to drink their blood. It is truly of a different, pre-Saw and even pre-Scream era in which sadistic torture and ultra-ironic audience nods are altogether out of the equation. Point of order: Sam Raimi and brother Ivan penned the script in 1993 and then shelved it for all these years. Thankfully, the piece was not lost completely. Drag Me to Hell is some of the most masterful pulp of this or any decade and bears no shame for its commitment to a passe style. In fact, if all is right in the world, Drag Me to Hell will make what is old new again. I'd gladly see a dozen more Raimi-like low-camp high-chill romps than any number of Hostel-like abuse tomes.

Paranormal Activity

2009-10-09T21:12:00.001-04:00

The so-called "scariest movie of the decade" is really a fairly sedate, sufficiently spooky creeper which capitalizes on the very primal fear of the vulnerable slumber. The film is shot in the building sub-genre of POV horror with unknown actors, one set, and a budget of $11,000. It chronicles the supposed haunting of Katie Featherston by a demon that has followed her since early childhood. Katie, now living with boyfriend Micah, has agreed to film their bedroom at night in order to capture the culprit on film. The couple records slight sounds and small movements at first but their continuing investigation of the phenomenon leads to one very pissed off demon and a much terrorized Katie.

A film like this is awfully hard to calibrate. How much casual banter do we need before the spooky stuff happens? How spooky should it be? How real? What will audiences tolerate? In many instances, writer/director Oren Peli gets it right. Several sequences, including the "powder night," pack a very potent mix of human emotion, suggestive horror, and just the right dose of the supernatural. Other ones, including a very cartoonish flaming Ouija board, simply take the gimmick too far. And the film's ending is chilling to a point....then nothing but overboard. If this really were found footage, it would be the most definitive proof of the supernatural ever caught on tape. What's wrong here is that the film all too often drifts from the novelty of subtle proof of the demonic to very cliché and recycled horror elements that are too convoluted to truly work in this format. At times, early in the film, it seems we're getting hardly any scares (a few thumps and nothing more). Later, it's a bit too much. A full-on demon-palooza. Not the eerie slow build scares the film does best. Paranormal Activity is far from perfect, but it is a nice experiment and it works well enough to be worth attending, albeit with modest expectations.

Cynics will likely grow weary of the main couple and their very "horror movie" decisions about the best ways to protect themselves. Somehow they manage to convince themselves (and attempt to persuade the audience as well) that they'd be best served by handling this situation alone and without the help of a professional demonologist, that fleeing their house would be a futile effort, and that it's best to just keep going to sleep every night as per usual and filming it to see what monsters attacked them in their sleep. That either of them voluntarily goes to sleep on the 21st (and final) day of their plight seems altogether insane and improbable.

As much as I like to back the dark horse indie, if pushed I would easily choose Sam Raimi's similarly themed and more lavishly produced Hollywood thriller Drag Me to Hell over this more mild concoction. Still, it's an impressive feat for such a small production and the final product is a thoroughly enjoyable, if overhyped, Halloween season treat.

Grade: B+

A Serious Man

2009-10-08T19:48:00.008-04:00

For all the talk of A Serious Man being a major departure for the brothers Coen, the film feels quite Coen-y. It's actually something of a culmination which fine-tunes many elements of the absurd, the surreal, and the darkly comic which have percolated in the brothers work for several decades. Oft-obsessed with all the ways things can go wrong (particularly in the world of crime), the Coens have wielded Murphy's law like a narrative weapon film after film. A Serious Man is the first of their works to actually speak the question of divine acts of misfortune aloud and give them religious context. Relative unknown Michael Stuhlbarg gives an incredible performance as Lawrence Gopnik, a put upon physics professor experiencing a Job-like series of unfortunate events which call his faith into question. Seeking answers, he speaks to the local rabbis in an to attempt to find God's meaning for his misfortune.

The movie opens quite uniquely with a Yiddish fable prologue shot in vintage aspect ratio and made to look somethig like an old European film. It is followed by a credits sequence revealed to be taking place inside the ear canal of Lawrence's son, Danny (Aaron Wolff), a rebellious child listening to Jefferson Airplan in Hebrew class. Almost every scene in this constantly surprising masterpiece feels like a stroke of genius. Most importantly, the Coens have never been so assured in their craft. Each moment feels so distinct and vivid; every line of dialogue feels clear and specific. Famous for filming every line of their script, the Coens go as far as to even decide the "umm..." and "aahhh..." sounds character make as they stammer. And no one authors awkward quite like Joel and Ethan Coen.

A Serious Man is a varied affair, a gentle comedy and an engrossing tragedy as well. It ponders fate, the place of a man in his world, and the ability of a good man to remain strong in the face of so much despair. It very subtly suggests in its stunning, sudden climax that the breaking point of one good man is the point at which the world fall's apart. In what must be one of their very greatest films, the Coens have created an absolutely unmissable, quintessentially American drama with playful rhythmic dialogue and unforgettable images. It's a film steeped in Jewish culture which dares to ask big questions about faith in a dark time.

Grade: A

Zombieland

2009-10-04T02:35:00.009-04:00

Credit Zombieland for knowing its place in the celluloid universe. Rather than attempting something grand and falling flat, the utterly fun and frivolous zombie comedy, set in a post-apocalyptic planet earth, simply savors its role as a nonsense happy rollercoaster ride. So much so that it does indeed build to an amusement park set climax which includes several gags involving actual rollercoasters.

Jesse Eisenberg (The Squid and the Whale) stars as "Columbus, Ohio" (no names in Z-Land), a paranoid loner who has managed to survive the annihilation of the human race by being constantly alert and without sentimental attachments. He finds a zombie killing companion in Tallahassee (Woody Harrelson) who doesn't just survive the zombies but actually derives pleasure from screwing with their mushy, flesh-craving brains. The pair's expedition goes relatively well until they cross paths with a sneaky team of con artists (Emma Stone and Abigail Breslin) who undergo a slow transistion from adversaries to adopted family.

Not exactly a plot-heavy film, Zombieland more or less follows the quartet on their cross country journey to Los Angeles where rumor has it there is a zombie free amusement part. Along the way they make a memorable stop in the Hollywood hills which includes a film-stealing cameo by a very game celebrity guest. This meta-moment proves the most memorable, and original, of the film's devices which usually don't rise above the path laid by previous horror spoofs.

All and all, though, this is a weirdly funny little gem loaded with good laughs and lots of thrill seeking spirit. Harrelson has a lot of fun playing his renegade badass role (a zombie movie staple) and manages to create a lovable, gun-toting degenerate who is alone worth the price of admission. Factor in the odd appeal of pint-sized, angel-faced Breslin stealing cars and shooting up zombies in a role Dakota Fanning wouldn't dream of touching, and you've got a cocktail for one of this Fall's weirdest entries and biggest sleeper hits.

Grade: B

Bright Star

2009-10-03T14:30:00.000-04:00

Early on in Jane Campion's pin-drop silent and intimitate romantic drama Bright Star, poet John Keats (Ben Whishaw) describes to his beloved Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish) the experience of poetry. She tells him how she struggles to "work it out" and he corrects her by likening a poem to a dive in a lake. It's not about getting to the shore right away, it's about the sensory experience of being in the lake itself. No doubt Campion took much the same approach in making this film. Gorgeous cinematography by George Fraser and a trio of sublime performances by leads Cornish, Whishaw, and Paul Schneider (as Keats' companion Charles Armitage Brown) make this a fully rewarding experience. Though, for all of Campion's grace with her camera and good measure of collaboration with her creative team and on-screen performers she has gone and made her herself a "wading film" in which the audience soaks up the sensory experience but goes nowhere very fast.

This is not necessarily a good or a bad thing but it does speak to the appeal of the piece. It's more for the lovers of poetry than for those who love a good quick, plot driven read. The plot is simply this: John loves Fanny but is too poor to marry her. They long to be together always and experience varying degrees of connectedness, constantly dreaming of the life they cannot have together. What lingers most in the mind after viewing Bright Star aren't the details of the plot but certain distinct images (a field of lavender, a dustpan full of dead butterflies).

Something of a visual poem, it's likely to have its fans and detractors. The script is highly literate and bathed in Keats' own work (even the closing titles play to a recitation by Whishaw). A slow start leads into a magnetic second and third act, concluding with a very stunning and shattering finale that place Schneider and Cornish in the best of lights and make them two of the season's most memorable performers thus far.

Grade: B+

Jennifer's Body

2009-10-02T00:53:00.005-04:00

In hindsight, Jennifer's Body never really could have been anything more than a cult hit, which hopefully it one day will be. The ever divisive Diablo Cody (Juno) is back in form, a good thing for some and a not so good thing for others, with an 80s obsessed pop culture drenched screenplay that works in everything from Vagisil to Emma Roberts' starrer Aquamarine in an attempt to make its every lick of dialogue extra twisty, "witty," and dissectable. Cody is not the first to fall in love with wordplay and she won't be the last. For viewers still mad at the dialogue in Juno, Body will offer no safe haven.

The good news is that not only is Jennifer's Body more loaded with slang no one actually says in real life, but it's also quadruply surprising, edgy, and subversive. To state it simply: Body is Juno with the volume turned up and the sentiment dialed back. If you loved Juno, you might just like this more. If you loathed it, steer clear. Love it or hate it, what's most admirable here is that Cody, one of the view auteur screenwriters working right now, manages to convey a complete, sadistic, and incredibly original vision. Realized visually by director Karyn Kusama (Girlfight), Body is a rare thing: a horror film with a female perspective. Best friends Jennifer (Megan Fox) and Needy (Amanda Seyfried) are pinned against one another in the aftermath of Jennifer's abduction by renegade emo rockers and eventual sacrifice to the devil (to the tune of "867-5309/Jenny," no less). The result being a succubus possessed Jen who feeds on the bodies of teenage boys. Consider it Heathers with The Exorcist spiked in for good measure.

Not only is Jennifer a fabulously unhelpless female villain (and perhaps the best possible excuse for the existence of Megan Fox, fabulous here in full bitch mode), but she is also very much a victim. Making this an oddly layered girl-on-girl love story/fight to the death in which both Needy and Jennifer get to be dark, twisted, and broken. It's hard not to see past the gnarled teeth and cannibalism to see the weird tale of abuse and subsequent spiraling destruction at the film's core. Most specifically, stupid boys who ruin young girls' lives and leave it up to their best girlfriends to pick up the pieces. It's pop horror with underlying wit and smarts, painting one high school girl's descent into darkness with broad horror overtones that grab at the Twilight generation without losing a sense of allegory.

Grade: B+

The Informant !

2009-09-21T01:18:00.008-04:00

Steven Soderbergh's The Informant!, based on Kurt Eichenwald's non-fiction book of the same name, tells the story of ADM executive turned FBI informant Mark Whitacre (Matt Damon) who aided the bureau in an investigation of price fixing within his company. Soderbergh forgoes any and all suspense and instead treats the film as a comedy of errors in which the slightly offbeat everyman Whitacre makes one mistake after another during his foray into corporate espionage. Whether it's narrating his every move and encounter while wearing a wire ("Hello, Liz Taylor-- my secretary") or looking straight into a hidden camera during a top secret meeting, Whitacre proves himself ill-equipped for the task of being a spy. So much so that he manages to drive his FBI handlers (Scott Bakula and Joel McHale) to the brink of their respective sanities.

The film's plot doesn't end there but every good synopsis should. For those unfamiliar with the real-life events, the story doesn't turn out exactly how you'd expect. Whitacre proves a far richer character than a simple, surface only muckraker. He's tightly wound, under pressure, and slowly unraveling before our eyes. The smallest details, including the all too genius "fun fact" voice-overs by Damon which reveal Whitacre's rambling inner-self, pay off tenfold as surprising clues to a true nature not foreseen in the film's bubbly first half. Damon and Soderbergh together have crafted a fine portrait of "that guy" in such vivid, believable and yet utterly outlandish detail. It's not about the intrigue or the mystery. It's really all about this man. What makes him tick and what he is willing to do.

It's another fine, albeit slight, collaboration for the actor-star pair (their fifth) that gives surprising one-time only acting nominee at the Oscars, Damon, a crucial career role that further distinguishes him as one of the finest of his generation.

Grade: A-

R.I.P. Patrick Swayze

2009-09-15T01:02:00.000-04:00

DVD Pick: State Of Play

2009-09-04T22:52:00.002-04:00

Russell Crowe, Rachel McAdams, Helen Mirren, and Ben Affleck star in this nifty little political thriller adapted from the UK series of the same name. Affleck is the babyfaced politico at the center of a scandal over a deceased aide with whom he supposedly had an affair. Crowe is the old fashioned newspaper man with lax morals and connections that run deep. McAdams is the modern blogger he loves to hate. And Mirren is the stern paper exec who rules over them all. Cracking the mystery of the aide's murder and the underlying conspiracy that caused it will pull Crowe and McAdams together despite reservations and ultimately reveal a last minute twist that probably doesn't make sense but is satisfying enough for this well done B grade thrill ride.

Inglourious Basterds

2009-09-04T22:32:00.002-04:00

Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds is not the film it has been advertised as, and in this case that’s a good thing. One likely enters the theater expecting three hours of Kill Bill style assassinations with Brad Pitt leading a pack of American soldiers whose sole purpose is to find and scalp Nazis. This is a portion of the film, but not the whole film. In fact, it’s a far smaller part of the film than anyone expected.

The real core of the narrative revolves around a Jewish survivor named Shosanna (Mélane Laurent) whose entire family was murdered at the hands of famed “Jew hunter” Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz). After eluding Landa years previously, Shosanna once again crosses paths with the man when her local cinema is made the sight of the world premiere of a Nazi propaganda flick which will draw together the elite of the Third Reich. Both Shosanna and the Basterds cook up plans to capitalize on the attraction as an opportunity to kill an optimal number of Nazi officers. The film is built around and leads up to the very night of this premiere.

More than anything, Basterds seems to be Tarantino’s most loving ode to the cinema. In many ways, the film feels less about WWII and more about the power, the legacy, and the immortality that film grants. Perhaps even its ability to rewrite history, however feebly. Basterds is steeped in cinema factoids that make it all the more charming if you happen to know who Leni Reifenstahl is, or that early film prints contained dangerous concentrations of nitrate. And if you know nothing, it offers a beautiful portrait of a bygone cinema era. Not to mention some of that trademark Tarantino wit and bloody intrigue. It’s a complicated blend that feels sharply tuned and rarely off the mark. Somehow all the murder and bloodshed feels sophisticated. It works toward a point, a final note that’s disturbing, manic, and altogether unforgettable.

What Tarantino has made is a film about film. One that meditates, in welcomed wild Tarantino fashion, on the power of film to immortalize the dead and massacre the living. A work that dares to make itself up as it goes along, pay homage to no truth but the one it aspires to, and simply invent an article of rich and dynamic vengeance fantasy to be savored with low delight and then studied with the high mind for its sheer ballsy dismissal of expectation.

The film is at every turn a surprise and needs to be seen to be discussed. So, see it already.

Grade: A

DVD Pick: Duplicity

2009-08-26T11:46:00.004-04:00

Julia Roberts and Clive Owen engage in Trouble in Paradise style comic one-upmanship in this fun thriller about two romantically entangled rival spies working a long con. The targets in question are two dueling drug companies fronted by explosive CEOs Tom Wilkinson and Paul Giamatti. The film comes from writer/director Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton) who has a good time playing with his spy cinema expertise (Gilroy penned the Bourne trilogy) by setting his high end protagonists on corporate wild goose chases, including a subplot about a potential frozen pizza scam. It's big stakes in surprisingly mundane surroundings and the contrast, combined with Roberts and Owen in witty banter mode, make this an enjoyable film trifle.

District 9

2009-08-23T12:00:00.005-04:00

One of the Summer’s best conceived thrillers becomes one of its most gratingly loud blockbusters in less than 100 minutes. District 9 falls from sharp, observant satire into terrain covered more commonly in Transformers in its disturbing, weird, and blood-lusty third act descent. It’s still fun. Probably even the best action flick of the Summer. It just lacks so much of the sophistication one expects from its winning and subtle beginning.

The film opens with the basic history of an alternate contemporary Earth which has made contact with an alien life form stranded in Johannesburg due to a spaceship malfunction. The government decides to ghettoize the alien life (given the derogatory slang name “prawns”) in a secluded sector named District 9. The film picks up 20 years later when a private corporation, MNU, has elected average chump Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley) as head of its alien affairs branch and defacto leader of the alien containment operation. To alleviate stress on the locals, MNU has set up a new camp in greater isolation and is embarking upon a “relocation” operation. The plan essentially calls for the involuntary relocation of the aliens by any means necessary and illuminates the deep abuses of the company and the illegality of its treatment of the “prawns.” The situation, handled by director Neill Blomkamp with the stoic straight-ahead approach with which one would address any political topic, is fascinating to watch. It is depicted with a clever flair for the reality an invasion would create. The dynamic has character, complexity, and something to say about the way governments handle crises and the way people handle newness and “the other.”

From here the scenario morphs, rather wildly, into a sci-fi spectacle complete with laser beams, an absurd subplot about cannibalistic Nigerian weapon traders, and a strange propensity for making people’s heads explode and splat against the camera (because it’s a “documentary”). There are certainly worse action films in the world and the special effects here are uniformly ingenious and realistic. But anyone hoping the promise of the film’s first act would be delivered upon and we would get a truly incisive and visionary tale of sci-fi reality will be sorely disappointed. Savor the intrigue and nuance of the film’s opening salvo. It will never reach such heights again. The film becomes less about intergalactic diplomacy and instead focuses on who can shoot whom first and with the biggest gun.

District 9 also suffers from a stylistic quirk that need be addressed. It’s mock doc schema is made weirdly complex by the elaborate overlay of “present day” interviews (falling after the events of the film), “found footage” from security cameras and other natural sources, and standard 35 mm Hollywood camera work which captures things like the alien’s “secret plan” that could not be conceivably documented by any camera, as it is, after all, a secret. How this all comes together to be any sort of plausible documentary form is forgivable yet slightly jarring. Reconciling the omniscient director’s camera with all the rather forcible suggestions of “realness” proves distracting, but gives the desired sense of time and place.

Blomkamp has made an undeniably original film with plenty of appeal and truly exciting ideas. Unfortunately, an awful lot of those ideas get lost in the shuffle as the film switches from sophisticated mock doc about an emerging crisis to juvenile action romp in almost no time at all. Maybe some can better embrace the shift and appreciate the film for both its smarts and its splat. I found the transition lacking. The film is a solid thriller worth seeing but it does not live up to its own standards.

Grade: B

R.I.P. John Hughes

2009-08-06T17:59:00.001-04:00

DVD Pick: Torchwood – Children Of Earth

2009-07-31T03:08:00.005-04:00

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

2009-07-31T02:55:00.006-04:00

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

2009-07-30T22:50:00.011-04:00

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

2009-07-24T14:07:00.004-04:00

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

2009-07-22T21:55:00.006-04:00

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

2009-07-22T21:51:00.003-04:00

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]

2009-07-19T19:11:00.002-04:00

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

2009-07-19T15:39:00.006-04:00

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

2009-07-06T14:54:00.001-04:00

Happy 4th

2009-07-04T16:43:00.000-04:00

R.I.P. Karl Malden

2009-07-01T22:22:00.001-04:00

Moon

2009-06-26T21:56:00.004-04:00

Moon is a thinking person’s sci-fi movie (read: not Transformers) focused on an isolated employee harvesting new age fuel components on the far side of the moon. For all that it echoes classics such as Solaris and 2001: A Space Odyssey, Moon does ultimately emerge a unique little gem paying generous homage to a series of predecessors (and occasionally quoting their language to mislead its audience). If you think you know where the film is going when you sit down to watch, you are wrong. Or psychic. It has an unknowable trajectory that while not as major or as epic as the classics above, is fairly satisfying and worthwhile.

Sam Rockwell gives a tour de force performance that requires him to flex his character chops and master more than a few special effects complexities that might otherwise have led to a stiff or unconvincing performance. Most gripping about his work is the common reality he captures in a setting so defined by the surreal and unimaginable. He makes spaceships on the moon seem perfectly normal, the usual 9 to 5 daily grind. There’s no question that the whole film hangs on his shoulders, for more than one reason.

Director Duncan Jones adapts a wonderfully minimalist style here that keeps the characters and story at the forefront, a rare achievement in modern sci-fi. Baring the occasional quirk, plot hole, or misstep the film is a real treat that is as fresh as it is familiar, particularly to an audience who recalls an earlier, less CGI-dominated era in American science fiction.

Grade: B+

Up

2009-06-26T21:44:00.002-04:00

The latest from Disney’s unstoppable Pixar is by far one of its most exciting adventures. Not quite the meditative masterpiece that Wall-E was, the film is more story-driven and plumped with action. A few very welcome juvenile touches (talking dogs!) make it feel like kid fare but there are so many adult ripples that one wonders how much of this children would understand or appreciate. In classic Disney fashion, we open with a tragic death. And it is perhaps the truest and least candy-coated cartoon fatality. Neither animal, nor spectacle, it is a quiet and sophisticatedly rendered human death from natural causes.

We then speed ahead to the present where Carl Frederickson, still grieving the loss of his darling wife Ellie, has blossomed into a first class lovable curmudgeon. A former balloon salesman specializing in making things take flight, Frederickson chooses to adorn his rooftop with a bundle of helium floaters and take off into the sky to avoid a bleak nursing home fate. Having promised his wife in childhood to take her to South America, he decides this new adventure is the perfect opportunity to plant the house on the spot they had discussed for their whole lives (one involving the legend of an old-time adventurer who recurs in truly strange ways). Along the way, he accidentally picks up a boy scout named Russell, who nobly attempts to earn his “helping the elderly” badge. Together they somehow end up on a totally enjoyable yet utterly incomprehensible South American adventure involving a renegade explorer, an endangered bird, and an army of dog soldiers. All the while having the floating house tied to their backs. Quite a feat.

It’s no mystery why Pixar has been so successfully at tapping both audience and Oscar voters. There films are potent blends of fun and adventure mixed up with sharp style and narrative nuance. Up is a fine addition to their mounting catalogue of future classics.

Grade: A

The Girlfriend Experience

2009-06-10T02:04:00.004-04:00

Most people consider Steven Soderberh a man with two modes: commercial and artistic. I’d opt for a third category (or at the very least a subsection of the latter). He has his collection of blockbuster hits (think Ocean’s Eleven) and his epically polarizing artistic experiments (think Che, all 5 hours of it) but in addition to his grand scale art indulgences he has a mounting collection of equally unique lo-fi art gems (think Bubble) shot on digital video with hardly any working budget and absolutely no recognizable stars. The Girlfriend Experience falls into this third category. Not just an artistic work but one of Soderbergh’s extreme art works which seem opposed to the pleasure principle of cinema and exist only to toy with an audience on an intellectual scale. While Bubble was a triumph of fly-on-the-wall aesthetics and environment submersion (with a compelling murder mystery twist), The Girlfriend Experience is a frigid, off-putting and utterly cold to the touch cinema experience offering minimal narrative and even thinner character portraits.

The film’s heroine, Chelsea (Sasha Grey), is an upscale escort living and working in New York during the period leading up to the 2008 election. We also meet her boyfriend who works as a personal trainer for the city’s elite. Both workers are luxuries for the hard-working and entitled, a social class significantly preoccupied with economic downturn. If you’ve ever wanted to be given a front row seat to prattling stockbrokers in a private jet bitching about their money losses…you’re in for a treat!

Like all things Soderbergh films, The Girlfriend Experience is beautiful to look at. And despite some controversy over her adult film past, Sasha Grey is a perfectly able lead. The problem is her character is such a blank slate, and each encounter she has with a client is such a monotonous and unspectacular business transaction, that the experience of watching her feels futile. This is a remarkably antiseptic and unsexy film not really about sex as the press materials suggest but about American industry in an era of decline. That sex amounts to little more than common industry is its basic, highly unoriginal conceit. Any deeper insight is a mystery to me. Perhaps it is short-sightedness or perhaps Soderbergh really has crafted a piece so slight it can run a sparse 80 minutes and hardly make a dent in one’s psyche.

Grade: C

The Brothers Bloom

2009-06-07T03:20:00.002-04:00

In his well-received debut, Brick, Rian Johnson raised homage to an art with a completely derivative yet wildly original high school-set noir flick. The Brothers Bloom furthers Johnson’s love of genre-play and this time he’s replaced Chandler-like moody mystery with fun con man intrigue and exploits (not to mention a little twist of Homer and Dostoyevsky for the sheer big-headed fun of it). The Brothers Bloom opens like a fairytale, with a narrator detailing (in rhyme no less) the sad tale of brothers Stephen and Bloom as they grew up bouncing from foster home to foster home, turning into small-time grifters on their way to adulthood.

By the time we meet up with them again 25 years later, Stephen (Mark Ruffalo) has burgeoned into a true con man mastermind. He doesn’t just execute cons for the cash reward but for the challenge of scripting a narrative so believable as to fool all involved and, as is his motto, give everyone what they want. Bloom (Adrien Brody) is slightly less thrilled with his circumstance. He begins to feel the weight of being a manipulator and craves “an unwritten life,” something real. Stephen pitches Bloom one last con to end all cons. They’ll win the affections of eccentric recluse heiress Penelope Stamp (Rachel Weisz), swindle her out of a cool million, and in the process give the wallflower a chance to shine in the adventurous role of her lifetime. Of course, Penelope is a real gem, a collector of talents (everything from juggling to break dancing) who has barely traveled beyond the walls of her Xanadu-type mansion. Her vast knowledge and quick wit make her the brothers’ toughest mark yet, and her will to improvise sets their simple con on its head and into several surprising subsequent storytelling phases.

Entering into The Brothers Bloom is a pure joy but it’s also something like falling into a bottomless pit. The film is about plans gone awry and thus at the end of each executed plan, a second, recovery operation must be forged. The result is a trail of false-endings that will either cause utmost jubilation or deep and sincere discontentment. It’s an Odyssey, no less, through the perils of the con world and then back to Penelope. The ins and outs are slight and vague, sometimes bordering on incomprehensible. But the journey is so fun that one need not question the importance of each tangent. To do so would utterly collapse this farce and ruin the fun. Johnson is a sculptor of stylish tales, not a master of linear narrative logic. Half his skill is in the roundabout, joyously goofy and surprisingly sophisticated way he brings you in circles to your sheer delight.

Case and point: Bang Bang (Rinko Kikuchi). A near silent Japanese explosions expert who appeared mysteriously one day to the brothers’ satisfaction and may yet disappear as mysteriously as she arrived. Does there need be such an enigma on the team? No. Does it distract from a core plot? Yes. Is it also the comic highlight of the film? Of course. Kikuchi whose tragic, silent performance in Babel stole the show proves here that she can also use those expressive eyes to steal the laughs too. She does silent disdain, inquisitive probing, and unspoken superiority like a pro. Watching her reaction to almost anything that happens is well worth your time. Not only is her every inflection an attractive ripple about each frame but her presence also helps solidify the movie as an absurd and original concoction.

Johnson is at play here in a scheming, chaotic confection of fairytales, 70s heist pictures, and Russian lit. Despite ups and downs and a dumb character named Diamond Dog, the trip is well-worth taking. As with any inordinately quirky comedy (think Wes Anderson or the Coen Bros.) not every strange obsession is a home run (that thunder makes Penelope horny is a weird and obvious clunker). Still, a bad time at a film as stacked and intricately weird as this would shock me.

Grade: B+

Drag Me to Hell

2009-06-06T07:25:00.000-04:00

The film's story is simple. Wonderfully simple. So simple that you bask in its simplicity and find yourself wondering why other films feel so compelled to muddy their collective narrative waters. Christine Brown (Alison Lohman) is a good girl. A Southern belle even. One who lived on a humble farm working her humble fields and living a humble life until the universe threw her a curveball and she escaped to the city where she now works as a bank loans officer, ever self-conscious of her less than urban chic past (we meet her practicing her vowel sounds in a mirror and eliminating ever last trace of that drawl). She is dating a very affluent and intellectual professor (Mr. Mac himself, Justin Long) who is her polar opposite and whose judgmental parents she has yet to win over, as she offers him no social mobility. By the wild whimsy of fate, Christine ends up responsible for the claim of the very old and very decrepit Mrs. Ganush (Lorna Raver) who wants a third extension on an already well overdue loan. In order to appease her vindictive boss, who holds the possibility of a promotion over her head, Christine turns the woman down as a means of showing that she is no pushover. Unfortunately, Mrs. Ganush is really a crazy gypsy hag and she places a deadly curse on Christine, one that leaves her to be plagued by a demon for 3 days and subsequently dragged into the depths of hell for eternity. Simple, really.

Raimi owes much of the film's success to cinematographer Peter Deming as well as the expert sound and production design crews. I've always believed horror, more than any genre, depends on the atmosphere setting elements of sound and lighting to achieve maximum effect. Yet the genre's status as a low cinema form tends to saddle it with the lowest of the low in talent and cheap hacks. It takes a combination of cinematography, set design, and sound design to make a vacant parking lot authentically creepy as opposed to just another horror movie cliche. Ditto for the sound of a creaking gate, or the shriek of an off-screen cat. What would be cheese in most features, plays here to surprisingly strong results. It its one of the most cleverly produced horror features I have ever seen, most notably the bustling, clanking, and genuinely unnerving sound mix which does the most work to keep the audience on its toes.

That's not to say that Raimi doesn't have his hand in the proceedings. He puts his stamp all over the film. Not for the humorless or the queasy, Drag Me to Hell specializes in gross out stunts and darkly funny scares. Raimi's preoccupation with bodily fluids touches almost every scene, occasionally too much so. So too does his very uncompromised sense of the demonic. In a horror landscape marked mostly by teen slashers and unfriendly ghosts, Raimi stokes the fire of truly dark and satanic subjects not touched by a Hollywood horror film in years.

His visual style depends partly on participating in cliche and elsewhere inverting the expected. In one his most masterful sequences, Raimi places Christine in a dark house. First comes the initial suspense of her probing its shadowy halls. Then a creaking sound. A slow tracking shot as Christine investigates. The typical false alarm front gate blowing in the wind. It takes only a second following this release of tension for Raimi to break the stillness with the rush of actual demon-shaped shadow creatures and the rattle of pots and pans as they get torn from their shelves by a vicious intruder. Like an emergency alarm of fire bell, the house is now the sight of catastrophe and adrenaline flows. This is only the beginning of the sequence. More developed horror is to follow.

Excusing the slightly juvenile sense of gross-out glee and a twist-ending that can be seen from a mile away, Drag Me to Hell is an absolutely perfect Summer treat. It's scary, complete fun, and genuinely unpredictable (the rarest of words to be associated with commercial Summer cinema). It takes no time at all to getting going and once it starts it never stops. Truly the best American horror film since The Sixth Sense.

Grade: A

R.I.P. David Carradine

2009-06-05T23:29:00.000-04:00

A Little Remedy for the Anguish of Finals...

2009-05-03T02:17:00.000-04:00

From Beau Travail directed by Claire Denis, cinema poet.

You MUST stay until 2:20. You can thank me later.

When Did PBS Get So Damn Cool?

2009-05-01T01:59:00.004-04:00

PBS' "Great Performances" series has purchased the film Spike Lee shot of the short-lived Broadway phenom Passing Strange during its all too brief 5 month run. The show, based on the life of composer and star Stew, tells the story of a middle-class black teenager exploring Europe and coming to terms with his self-identity, complete with a very rocking score and one of the most imaginative productions ever on Broadway stage. The film will air in 2010 with a slight chance of a theatrical run in later Summer/early Fall.

For the record, I did try to find a YouTube video that demonstrates the show's awesomeness but none of the existing ones do it nearly enough justice. I'm a little worried that the show can't be properly enjoyed if you don't feel the roof raising, seat shaking goodness of "Keys" live and in person (Seriously, it's like a drug you can't help but go back to). Hopefully the Lee film will catch that energy. Hopefully.

R.I.P. Bea Arthur

2009-04-25T23:29:00.000-04:00

State Of Play

2009-04-23T23:53:00.009-04:00

Based on the British mini-series created by Paul Abbott, State of Play is a well-made and tightly plotted political thriller of astounding pedigree. From director Kevin Macdonald (The Last King Of Scotland), to scribes Matthew Michael Carnahan (The Kingdom), Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton) and Billy Ray (Shattered Glass), to the top-to-bottom incredible cast beginning with headliners Russell Crowe and Rachel McAdams and ending with single-scene cameos by the likes of Oscar nominee Viola Davis. There's nary a disappointing name attached to the project. Even square-jawed and limp-careered Ben Affleck does solid work here as a political golden boy enrapt in scandal.

Affleck's Congressman Michael Collins takes a political hit following the public discovery of an affair with a recently deceased aide. Enter old friend and hard-boiled reporter, Cal McAffrey (Crowe), who advises Collins on how to handle the crisis and stay ahead of the media, including a proactive investigation into the young woman's supposed suicide. Soon Cal is working in tandem with rival reporter Della Frye (McAdams) who operates the newspaper's much maligned news blog and negotiating with paper editor Cameron Lynne (Helen Mirren) to keep vigilant on a story that seems open and shut. The investigation takes Cal and Della through a range of dangerous confrontations and surprising twists and turns including shocking revelations regarding Collins' wife (Robin Wright Penn), an esteemed Senator (Jeff Daniels), and a mysterious stranger that brings them all together (Jason Bateman).

It's a fun ride that's better executed than most of this sort. The acting is uniformly excellent with Mirren doing her best brassy boss lady and Crowe giving good gruff. Most of the cast does a wonderful job of remaining low key and subtly real. Affleck is the only one who can't resist chewing scenery but as a demonstrative and potentially corrupt politician, his artificial touch feels oddly appropriate for the character, even if unintentional. The writing is sharp and appreciably world weary. Reporters, for example, don't jump at the possibility of a global conspiracy but laugh at the idea given its rarity. Characters are believably ill-equipped to handle physical confrontations and are genuinely affected at the intensity of what is going on around them. The film makes a case for its extremity by treating its story as an exceptional moment in these people's lives and not another day on the job, one with murder, adultery, executions, hitmen, shady dealings, and a private military company that might just be offing loose ends. Barring a few logical inconsistencies (a given for most twisty thrillers) it's an impeccably smart and alluring treat.

Grade: B+

DVD Pick: The Wrestler

2009-04-21T11:03:00.002-04:00

A bruised and beaten Mickey Rourke in full lumbering nice guy swagger mode is the main attraction in Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler. The film, penned by Robert Siegel, tells the story of a Hulk Hogan type down on his luck pro wrestler, Randy "The Ram" Robinson (Rourke), who was once a big star and is now a novelty item at regional shows who lives in a trailer park (when he can afford it) and makes his fun by playing as himself in an old Nintendo game with neighboring kids. His life is grueling and unsatisfying and it only gets worse from here. In an early scene, Randy's favorite dancer at the local strip club, Cassidy (Marisa Tomei), makes an off-handed reference to The Passion of the Christ and the comparison sticks, in metaphoric terms. Randy is a good man who suffers mercilessly in the ring for the enjoyment and satisfaction of others. The film can be best read as a testimony to the sacrifice of an artist to his audience. Randy is put slowly and surely through trials and torment both inside and outside the ring and ultimately Aronofky's ambiguous ending suggests something dark and completely transformative: The Passion of the Hulk.

Grey Gardens

2009-04-20T15:38:00.007-04:00

Here is a simple fact: crazy people love Grey Gardens. The Maysle's beguiling, absurdist account of "Big" and "Little" Edie Beale has only grown its cultish flock in the years since it premiered and has become a point of affiliation for many a film loving loon. The connection felt is that of wayward disenfranchised viewer compared with wayward disenfranchised subject. The difference being the Beales were not simply anti-social but deeply troubled, perhaps mentally ill, and for lack of substantial food or indoor plumbing. Their experience was not cozily disjointed from the mainstream but most accurately madness and squalor. Still, there is a weirdly universal note within the shocking story of the conditions these once wealthy East Hampton socialites let themselves fall into. It speaks to a human want to let go and sink in to one setting, however inappropriate, as well as to the push and pull between comfort and accomplishment, striving and settling. The Beales are the extreme of a common impulse and so we can watch them with affection, horror, and perhaps a little jealousy.

To take that acclaimed documentary, whose legacy includes a pseudo-sequel (The Beales of Grey Gardens), a Tony winning musical starring Christine Ebersole, and slew of books and memorabilia, and make it a newly formed narrative drama seems like madness. And in so many ways it is. The form of the film is like a double-edged sword. Many moments from the documentary must be recreated (as it is the dominant source of info on the pair's later lives), the consequence of which is redundancy to those who've seen the doc and complete befuddlement to the uninitiated with no context in which to set such strangeness. The film weaves the past and present together, chronicling the descent of the Beales with decently rendered dramatic tension but not the least bit of suspense. We watch knowing that poor "Little" Edie's attempts to make it in the big city will fail, as everyone knows where her future lies. In fact, the only news here for those who have experienced Grey Gardens in one form or another is the film's brief chronicling of the aftermath of the original doc's release (a subject, of course, not able to be captured in the documentary). We learn that "Little" Edie did actually attend the New York premiere of the film and basked in her deranged starlet-ness and that she subsequently staged a doozy of a cabaret act at a New York nightclub. What the film offers is not a new dimension to the characters fans have grown to love, but an accurate tribute and a bit of a new ripple in their legacy. The film's final moments remind us that all either woman really wanted was to be a star. Though their lives never offered them such success, they have since come to be celebrities of a sort and now they are portrayed by bona fide movie stars. I think this fact would have tickled them both.

This brings us to the extraordinary performances which, as with all film's of this sort, are at least half the fun of watching. Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange perform wondrous feats of mimicry and soulful channeling here. Very often they are called upon to perform famous moments from the original doc, such as "Little" Edie's "The best costume for the day" speech, and they both do so with quite uniform perfection. In the less documented pasts of both women, the two actresses take more liberties and very ably create rich characters of despair and egoism whose fate as recluses hangs over our expectations and adds further layers of complexity to the early seeds of co-dependence and indulgent social detachment. As the two Edie's dance together to piano music with no concern for date or time while hordes of party goers mess their beautiful estate, we see that the later years living in a desolate dump singing along to a record player as time rolls on were never really all that far aways to fall.

Grade: B

I Believe They Call This 'Movie Magic'

2009-03-26T17:54:00.003-04:00

Spike Jonze directs the long-awaited adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are (and juices up the trailer with a little Arcade Fire).

DVD of the Week: Vicky Cristina Barcelona

2009-01-27T03:47:00.007-05:00

Woody Allen writes and directs this sexy, funny, and whip-smart comedy about two tourists spending the Summer in Spain. Rebecca Hall plays Vicky, the conservative friend with a perfectly nice and handsome fiance (Chris Messina) waiting for her at home and no desire to get caught up in romantic fantasy. Scarlett Johansson is Cristina, a free spirit artist who believes in the magic of romance, though it always seems to be, in her case, quite fleeting. When the two women are propositioned by a mysterious and handsome artist (Javier Bardem), Vicky instantly rebukes his offer while Cristina cannot help but accept. By an act of fate, it is Vicky who ends up in the painter's bed, leaving the content woman to wonder if there is something more to life than comfort and security. Meanwhile, Cristina soon makes up for lost time and ends up in an oddly comfortable relationship with both the painter and his fiery ex-wife (Penelope Cruz). Further complications arise when Vicky's fiance flies to Spain to visit her and the 5 of them recognize they are utterly lost and confused in their romantic lives.

Woody-Allen hasn't written a smarter, sharper character comedy in years and though there is an oddly literal narrator spelling out ever intimate thought at every turn of the film, the unfussy Woody-ness of it somehow makes it work. Great performances all around don't hurt either. Penelope Cruz is especially wonderful here as a combustible beauty equal parts delicate lover and seething vessel of rage. She's as desperate and broken as she is funny and outrageous. Rather than go the typical spitfire route, Cruz lays in the drama and takes the character to a new level. She'll be stiff competition at the Oscars this season where she is nominated in the Best Supporting Actress category. The film also picked up a big win at the Golden Globes where it was named Best Picture - Comedy.

Open Wide

2009-01-23T02:33:00.012-05:00

With the Oscar nominations fresh in people's minds, many studios are making a big push this weekend for their nominated films. This includes big expansions of many top contenders. Considering the slow market that's typical in January (Paul Blart: Mall Cop anyone?) your best bet at the movies this weekend is to check out one of these very worthy holdovers.

Opening wide is Slumdog Millionaire which reaped 10 nominations including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay. It also placed at #2 on my list of the Top 10 Films of 08. Frost/Nixon which received recognition in Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay and earned a positive if not glowing review from myself. And Revolutionary Road which earned several tech nods but only one major slot in contest: Michael Shannon for Best Supporting Actor. Obviously, the studio was hoping for a better showing and may regret going wide so soon. Poor Rev Road has taken a beating but I honestly can't say I enjoyed it, or even found it at all compelling. To give it proper due, though, I'll say that it does have an ardent constituency of supporters hailing it as a classic American drama. As someone who's often a part of an ardent constituency of supporters pertaining to a film no one else seems to like, I respect their passion and remain open to the possibility that I may have missed something. But really, I don't think I did.

Expanding to significantly more theaters are The Wrestler and Rachel Getting Married each of which took home nominations in the acting races this year. The Wrestler landed at #4 on my Top 10 this year while Rachel squeezed in at #10. It's worth knowing that nominees Mickey Rourke and Anne Hathaway are not just cannon fodder fifth slot nominees *ahem*Michael Shannon*ahem*, but really have a shot at a win. Perhaps that will get some people out to see these two fine films.

Interestingly enough, Warner Bros. has also decided to re-release its much celebrated and much Oscar snubbed The Dark Knight in conventional theaters and IMAX venues nationwide. It's not a wide release but still a substantial one. Obviously, there was the hope it might be a celebration of the film's overcoming the labels of "comic book movie" and "sequel" to nab a Best Picture nod. This is not the case. Blame The Reader. But if you did somehow miss The Dark Knight in theaters or want to see it again, this is probably your last chance. It scored Oscar nominations in tech categories and, of course, one in Best Supporting Actor where star Heath Ledger is the obvious front-runner....over Michael Shannon among others.

I'd also like to mention that The Curious Case of Benjamin Button remains in wide release this weekend and with 13 nominations (one shy of the record for the most ever held by Ben-Hur and Titantic) it obviously has Oscar's approval. It also has mine. I ranked it first on my top 10 this year.

The lazy and sofa-inclined can participate in the Oscar hysteria as well. Several quality nominees are already available on DVD: The Visitor (Best Actor), In Bruges (Best Original Screenplay), Tropic Thunder (Best Supporting Actor - Robert Downey Jr.), Wall-E (Best Original Screenplay), Hellboy II: The Golden Army (Best Makeup), Iron Man (Best Visual Effects), and The Dark Knight (for those who want to pass up the theater experience).

A Weird Ass Year for the Oscars

2009-01-22T12:51:00.006-05:00

The Oscars always manage to be a little more surprising in their selections than most, lesser award shows (perhaps this is why those shows remain lesser), but this year more than most they threw a mighty heap of curve balls that cinema fans must now swallow.

The Good: Indie longshots Richard Jenkins (The Visitor) and Melissa Leo (Frozen River) score nods in Best Actor and Best Actress respectively. Best Original Screenplay just kicks all around ass, passing up famous faces with iffy work this year (Woody Allen, Coen Bros.) for lesser knowns doing stellar stuff such as Frozen River writer/director Courtney Hunt and In Bruges writer/director Martin McDonagh. Writer/director Mike Leigh takes a surprise writing nod for his superb Happy-Go-Lucky as well. So, does Wall-E, a film that nearly rebuffed the "no amination in Best Picture" tradition but ended up settling for a more common screenplay nod (though still a feat for animation). And Dustin Lance Black, who made a mark with great work for Milk rounds out the category, and perhaps leads it if you're placing bets already. Overall, 13 nominations (the most of any film) to my #1 of the year, The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button, and 10 nominations to my #2, Slumdog Millionaire. That's something I can be happy about.

The Bad: THE READER?!?!?!? OK, so I hate to pooh-pooh the party but if the Academy's choice of the so-so melodramatic Holocaust flick over the phenomenal genre epic The Dark Knight isn't a clear and decisive act of snobbery, then I don't know what is. Call it English Patient syndrome. Call it the Atonement vote. For some reason, though, we can't quite shake these damn mediocre prestige pics from our collective Oscar consciousness. But I digress, The Dark Knight took a major tumble. Chris Nolan lost out on a deserving Best Director nod as well (also going to The Reader for Steven Daldry). Heath Ledger's nomination is it's only major one, and if there's any justice he will win out over a crop of very solid performances by talented men, none of which comes close to being as iconic as Ledger's now historic Joker interpretation.

Reader momentum also swept Kate Winslet to a nomination for that film in the Best Actress race. As some of you know, Winslet had been pushing to be considered in Best Supporting Actress for that film and as a lead for Revolutionary Road (no actor can be nominated twice in one category, though if you're Barry Fitzgerald you can apparently be simultaneously a lead and supporting actor). Rev Road walked away with one major nod (Michael Shannon in Best Supporting Actor) and The Reader walked away with many. When you take into acount how many ways Winslet split her own vote (lead vs. supporting for Reader and Rev Road vs. Reader for lead), it seems pretty obvious that there's an overwhelming support for the 5 time loser Winslet this year, and for this film particularly (they nominated it for Best Picture!). In the immortal words of "Extras," Winslet's finally gonna win one!

The bad news in this category is no Sally Hawkins, no Kristin Scott Thomas, and no Cate Blanchett. Angelina Jolie held in there despite steep competition. Strange considering her overwrought, mixed-reviewed performance in Clint Eastwood's Changeling comes nowhere near to her snubbed work in A Mighty Heart. Maybe this is an act of contrition? Interestingly enough, Clint and his big new hit Gran Torino were totally snubbed.

And my last bit of outrage, while I love the wonderful music created by A.R. Rahman for Slumdog and personally hope "O Saya" with M.I.A. takes the trophy, I can't believe there are only 3 song nominees this year and that none of them is Bruce Springsteen, who, if nominated, would have been my pick to win. His "The Wrestler" beautifully captures the spirit of Arronofsky's phenomenal film of the same name (a nominee for Best Actor and Supporting Actress!). Putting that aside, who else hopes they do some very seriously Bollywood-style performance at this year's ceremony in honor of "Jai Ho," which closes Slumdog with an extra dose of life and fun that's something not unlike the bow on top of a great gift.

BEST PICTURE
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
Milk
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire

BEST DIRECTOR
Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
Stephen Daldry, The Reader
David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Ron Howard, Frost/Nixon
Gus Van Sant, Milk

BEST ACTOR
Richard Jenkins, The Visitor
Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn, Milk
Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler

BEST ACTRESS
Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
Angelina Jolie, Changeling
Melissa Leo, Frozen River
Meryl Streep, Doubt
Kate Winslet, The Reader

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Josh Brolin, Milk
Robert Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt
Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Amy Adams, Doubt
Penelope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Viola Davis, Doubt
Taraji P. Henson, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Frozen River, Courtney Hunt
Happy-Go-Lucky, Mike Leigh
In Bruges, Martin McDonagh
Milk, Dustin Lance Black
WALL-E, Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon, Pete Docter

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Eric Roth
Doubt, John Patrick Shanley
Frost/Nixon, Peter Morgan
The Reader, David Hare
Slumdog Millionaire, Simon Beaufoy

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Bolt Kung
Fu Panda
WALL-E

BEST ANIMATED SHORT
La Maison en Petits Cubes
Lavatory — Lovestory
Oktapodi
Presto
This Way Up

BEST ART DIRECTION
Changeling
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
The Duchess
Revolutionary Road

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Changeling
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Australia
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Duchess
Milk
Revolutionary Road

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)
Encounters at the End of the World
The Garden Man on Wire
Trouble the Water

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT
The Conscience of Nhem En
The Final Inch
Smile Pinki
The Witness — From the Balcony of Room 306

BEST EDITING
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Frost/Nixon
Milk
Slumdog Millionaire

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
The Baader Meinhof Complex (Germany)
The Class (France)
Departures (Japan)
Revanche (Austria)
Waltz with Bashir (Israel)

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT
Auf der Strecke (On the Line)
Manon on the Asphalt
New Boy
The Pig Spielzeugland (Toyland)

BEST MAKEUP
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Hellboy II: The Golden Army

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Alexandre Desplat
Defiance, James Newton Howard
Milk, Danny Elfman
Slumdog Millionaire, A.R. Rahman
WALL-E, Thomas Newman

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
''Down to Earth,'' (WALL-E)
''Jai Ho,'' (Slumdog Millionaire)
''O Saya,'' (Slumdog Millionaire)

BEST SOUND EDITING
The Dark Knight
Iron Man
Slumdog Millionaire
WALL-E
Wanted

BEST SOUND MIXING
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Slumdog Millionaire
WALL-E
Wanted

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Iron Man

I'll Be Back Soon

2009-01-14T03:09:00.004-05:00

My Top 10 of 2008

2008-12-31T12:00:00.001-05:00

The 10 films I enjoyed most this year, counting down from 10 to 1. Click the respective banner to read my complete review. Happy New Year!

The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button

2008-12-31T10:33:00.000-05:00

Based on a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald and adapted by Oscar winner Eric Roth, The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button is former post-modern grit director David Fincher's arrival as a soulful filmmaker. Rich detail and imaginative visualization can be found in all his works, but Button, which feels more like an arrival than a departure, reaches new heights of aesthetic and emotional splendor.

Benjamin Button is born under unusual circumstances. He emerges wrinkled and withered by arthritis and then gets younger with each year. "Promise me, he has a place" is the last line spoken by his dying mother. Soon after, his father drops him off at the doorstep of a home for the elderly. A worker at the home named Queenie (Taraji P. Henson) takes him in and cares for him despite his unsightly appearance. At first Benjamin thinks he is an old man just like all the rest but as he ages down as everyone else ages up, the truth begins to be revealed to him. He falls in love with the granddaughter of a resident and the two age in opposite directions, ultimately meeting in the middle. She grows up to be played by Cate Blanchett. He is played at nearly every stage by Brad Pitt (via a number of special effects). The two actors are enchanting from start to finish in what are two of their greatest roles respectively.

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is a grown-up fairytale that calls to mind the impossible order of things and the renewability of being. It aims to lift people up from their chairs and send them out of the theater refreshed, rejuvenated, and feeling that they, like Benjamin, do have a place in the world. Less a narrative film than an all-around good-hearted ode to the human spirit with all its whimsy and unpredictable yearning. In a year full of phenomenal films about the importance and the endurability of hope (Slumdog Millionaire, Milk, Happy-Go-Lucky, The Dark Knight, Wall-E), The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button is perhaps the best of all.

Grade: A

Revolutionary Road

2008-12-31T01:30:00.001-05:00

Revolutionary Road tells the bleak tale of Frank and April Wheeler, a nice young couple who live on Revolutionary Road in some unnamed suburb of New York City. We meet them as they meet each other at a party one night. We shift then to their lives years later as miserable suburban spouses who almost instantly start in with the brash and brutal verbal assaults. It's like Whose Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? with none of the wounded drunken vulnerability or wicked wit. Just a constant onslaught of miserable people with selfish motives yelling things at one another. Nothing is nuanced or suggested but instead stated aloud and often. It's like being bludgeoned with melancholy to the point of submission. The only sliver of hope is in the able execution of director Sam Mendes and the surprisingly effective performances of the cast, particularly lead actors Leonard DiCaprio and Kate Winslet.

Winslet quietly explodes on screen. Her yearning as April Wheeler nearly eclipsed by the yearning actress behind the eyes desperate for lines less heinous than: "You're the most beautiful thing in the world. You're a man." The simpleness of her longing stare expresses twice the pathos of Justin Haythe's wish-washy screenplay. She finds uncanny truth in a character so thin in her desperation. April decides one day the whole family should just up and move to Paris and the film holds at arm's length the deceptive belief that this ambition is something more than a placating delusion. The trap of suburban comfort is not so easily escaped and the fact that this big move -- a falacy sustained for more than half of the film's runtime -- factors so prominently into the narrative makes the whole movie feel like one big inevitable meltdown always just a little bit father in the distance. Moreover, neither April or Frank deal with the massiveness of such a choice. They simply dangle it in front of their friends at parties and whisper it to themselves when they're alone in the dark. The longing they share would be sad if it wasn't so pathetic. Everything about them is so casual and superficial. On a walk one day with an institutionalized mathematician played by Michael Shannen (because you know, that's just the sort of thing that couples did together in the 50s) they off-handedly remark about the "hopelessly empty" lives they lead in a manner so calm and collected that it seems obvious they're not suffering all that deeply. What, if anything, more hopeful would present itself in Paris is unclear. As is the way in which their posh suburban life is truly deadening them to the point of needing more than just some simple self-reflection. Revolutionary Road is not a film about dissatisfied people who simply want to make their lives better. It's a film about emotional hypochondriacs who want to do illogical things in the name of fixing a problem that runs deeper than a zip code. And when the idea of Paris finally passes, the film only turns darker and the characters more frustratingly desperate. Buying into their bullshit is something near to maddening.

It's surprising that Mendes, who raised suburban discontentment to an art with his brilliant handling of Alan Ball's screenplay for American Beauty, could get behind such a sullen and unsatisfying piece that reduces the entire situation to a handful of rotten and overly dramatic blowouts between a charmless couple. Beauty saw suburbia through scathing eyes but with humor and imagination to spare. Road is pure melodrama and its characters see nothing with original eyes. They are wearying, pre-programmed types who offer no new insights to the well beaten path they walk on. Every inch of their lives is painted with such moroseness that it's hard to envision the reason why they stay together, or ever got together in the first place. It's a film too flat to be art and too boring to be entertainment. It coasts rather than engaging and the result is something miserable that leaves you no better at the finish than you were at the start. American Beauty was probably even darker than this film, but it was also joyous in its own sinister way. It found the beauty in tragedy. Here there isn't even really tragedy, just overblown banality.

Grade: C-

Seven Pounds

2008-12-28T16:15:00.001-05:00

Seven Pounds is the hardest type of film to describe because it is built around the slow revelation of information. Will Smith stars as Ben Thomas, a mysterious man determined to help change the lives of strangers for reasons not immediately understood. The film reteams Smith with Italian director Gabriele Muccino, who previously directed him to an Oscar nomination in The Pursuit Of Happyness. While Happyness was more than a little bit treacly it still has a leg up on Pounds which is nothing but a dour and emotionally false melodrama. Somehow Will Smith manages to remain charming and honest at the center of it all. The greatest achievement of Muccino in his American films has been to push Smith to deeper depths as an actor. Some movie stars never reach the maturity Smith has in recent years, and he himself credits Muccino with helping him to breakdown his on-screen persona and create legitimate characters.

Seven Pounds is not a film worthy of his talents, nor those of co-star Rosario Dawson, who stands out with her usual earthy charms as an ailing beauty in need of a heart transplant. The actors gifts are wasted by an awkwardly constructed feature with far too many contrivances to strike an emotional chord. Rather than addressing the feelings of the characters, the film makes the unfolding plot so blurry and distorted that scenes pass without being able to be fully understood. The result is unearned drama with heavy-handed tear-jerking scenes that register as over the top when placed outside any sensible context.

The inevitable reveal, to which the whole film builds, is anything but satisfying. Just another ugly and implausible manipulation in a long line of them. If not for the effervescent nature of the film's two winning stars, this would not even be anywhere near watchable. As it stands, it's still not quite there.

Grade: D+

Gran Torino

2008-12-23T20:12:00.001-05:00

To direct, produce, score, and star in a feature is always an accomplishment. To also direct, produce and score another feature that same year is even more impressive. To do all this at the age of 78 is something else entirely. Veteran Clint Eastwood is a marvel of achievement. A Hollywood icon who is not just sitting around and being iconic but actively working to produce ever more engaging cinema late in life. Both his earlier feature in 2008, Changeling, and his latest, Gran Torino, demonstrate Eastwood as a solid storyteller working consistently to create films that are complex and ambitious yet aesthetically within the classical Hollywood style. In a film age where the divide between commerce and quality seems to be growing and directors must choose either to be art-house auteurs or popcorn schlock peddlers, Eastwood is a down the line straight shooter who breaks the pattern.

Gran Torino is a fine parable about modern violence and the evolution of the American neighborhood. Walt Kowalski (Eastwood) is a detached widower openly dissatisfied with the growing Hmong population which is slowly dominating his neighborhood. This is especially true when a new Hmong family moves in right next door. But when the youngest son of the family is harassed by a local gang, Walt steps in with his loaded rifle and unintentionally becomes a local hero. He continues to defend his neighbors from the rough gangs in the area, perhaps out of an instinctive impulse to protect and serve, and eventually grows to develop a particular affection for the neighboring kids, Sue (Ahney Her) and Thao (Bee Vang).

Changeling might be the better and less sentimental feature, but Gran Torino is so quintessentially Clint that its foibles get buried beneath a glowing audience nostalgia for the man, his myth, and the way he sees it through to the end in this work. Eastwood has stated it will be his final role as an actor and it's a poetic end to be sure. At once a memorial for that old gun-toting son of a gun Eastwood was born to play and a revision of his legend as that of a healer and humanist rather than an agitator or menace. Even at his darkest, Eastwood always managed to give his world weary renegades soul and Walt may be the deepest and most heartbreaking of all these. Stand up men misunderstood by a stubborn and naive society that does not appreciate the nature of their stoic compassion and the burdening scars their pasts have earned them.

Eastwood has never won an Academy award for acting (though he has racked up 4 as a director and producer) but here he once again showcases a fine subtlety of craft and keen comic timing. He encapsulates both the comedy and tragedy of Walt into an everyday Eastwood-esque snarl that registers both as an affectation and revelation. His soul may be weary but his patience runs thin. While the crotchety man next door could easily be a throwaway ham of a role (as it so often is) Eastwood squeezes in some wrenching sincerity between the easy jokes about his antiquated nature and overtly racist, but only passively malicious, word choices.

Tensions run high and sap can sometimes dominate, but Gran Torino still manages to pull off the feat of merging violence and emotional connection with great poise and distinctive sincerity. More importantly, the Eastwood shadow lends this a warm and earnest sentiment that makes the cheese forgivable and even charming. Another winner from Eastwood. He's not done yet.

Grade: A-

Frost/Nixon

2008-12-23T15:11:00.010-05:00

Frost/Nixon began its life as a Broadway play written by Peter Morgan (The Queen, The Last King Of Scotland) as a consequence of his frustration with the Hollywood screenplay. He expressly made it "unfilmable" keeping all the action within a few select settings and including direct addresses to the theater audience. Now, years later, Morgan's play has been made into a film, and perhaps to his own surprise, a good one. Morgan penned the adapted script and director Ron Howard stepped up to film the "unfilmable." Frost/Nixon survives translation better than Doubt and the lesser Mamma Mia! making it this year's top stage to screen cinema entry.

The centerpiece of the film is the series of interviews held between Frost and Nixon following Nixon's decision to resign the presidency in the wake of the Watergate scandal. Frost, a British talk show host, had no credibility as a political journalist at the time and was predicted by most of his peers to be Nixon's easy way out, an interview with someone not of the caliber to grill him properly. Such is the case for the bulk of their time together in which a cocky Frost, who has sunk a bunch of his own money into making the interview happen, gets the wind taken out of his sails. His call to action, spurred by an unforgettable late night phone call from Nixon which is known to be a fictional creation by Morgan, leads him to procure what was thought impossible: a candid public confession from the man known as "Tricky Dick."

The stars of the original show, Frank Langella and Michael Sheen, reprise their roles here as former president Richard Nixon and media mogul David Frost respectively. They are as good here as they were on stage and their rapport, obviously strengthened from 8 shows a week, gives the film all the more energy and verve. The rest of the ensemble has been fleshed out with more famous faces, all of whom do astoundingly well and are surprisingly gracious in peripheral parts. Kevin Bacon does his best work in years as Jack Brennen, Nixon's unwaveringly loyal confidant and protector. He manages to be stern, hilarious, villainous, and strangely likable all at once. Opposite in every way to the dead-serious Brennen are Frost's confidants and investigators, including a laid back Oliver Platt, a hot-headed Sam Rockwell, and a charmingly stuffy Matthew Macfadyen all in top form. Frost also manages somehow on his way to conduct these interviews to charm a young lady into joining him for the trip. She is played by delightful up and comer Rebecca Hall.

Morgan's intensely engrossing yet brisk and funny tone survives into his screenplay which is very faithfully adapted. Even his theatrical direct address technique gets appropriated here as mock-documentary interviews in which people involved with the interviews confess their thoughts and feelings. Director Ron Howard continues with this docudrama feeling, creating a film that feels candid and quite plain, with select and specific visual flourishes. Howard has never been much of an auteur but he continues to assert himself as a splendid classical filmmaker. Frost/Nixon is both compelling non-fiction narrative and satisfying entertainment.

Grade: B+

The Day the Earth Stood Still

2008-12-21T10:54:00.003-05:00

Scott Derickson's remake of the 1951 sci-fi flick The Day the Earth Stood Still is yet another leaden eco-crisis thriller almost as bad, and certainly as pointless, as M. Night Shyamalan's hideous The Happening. Keanu Reeves, still drawing unintentional laughs all these years later, tries to utilize his general wooden stare to indicate the inhuman detachment of the other worldly Klaatu but still comes up short of being convincing. Klaatu is a messenger, accompanied by the massive and massively goofy looking robot guardian GORT. He heralds the extermination of the human race by some unspecified intergalactic alliance for the purpose of saving the earth from additional harm at human hands. While on his mission, he meets Dr. Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly) and her stepson, Jacob (Jaden Smith), whose job it becomes to demonstrate to him the goodness of humanity and convince him to stop the plan for destruction (an unexplained process involving rapidly duplicating parasites that basically allow Derrickson to create a cool looking dissolve effect as the parasites eat through 18 wheelers and sports arenas).

The film is utterly predictable, uninventive, and unexciting. Worst of all, for something clearly meant as sci-fi pulp, it takes a decidedly self-righteous and somber tone toward its material, making all its robots and laser beams laughable instead of cool geeky fun. Beneath the effects, there is no great depth or humanity and a kernel of environmentalism does not equal a genuine dramatic theme. Each character is boiled down to baseline emotions and monotonous dialogue filled with smart-ish sounding science jargon that once again makes scenes about aliens somehow awfully boring. So many talented people appear throughout the film, spewing pointless lines about some such scientific something or whatnot, and at some point you start to wonder how they got all these people and how they let them all go to such waste. Supporting players, ranging from stars (Kathy Bate, John Cleese) to working character favorites (Jon Hamm, Kyle Chandler, and Robert Knepper) are put to no use at all. They enter, say some vague line about traveling speed and arrival time and then exit with just as little purpose. Either the bankroll was high or the producer was a smooth talker. It's a shame these guys didn't get more material, or at least some of a more substantive caliber.

This is a weird, preachy, and significantly action-less wannabe blockbuster that seems hot on the heels of Francis Lawrence's more effective I Am Legend in its efforts to exploit scenes of New York City destroyed and left in ruins. Perhaps that was exciting all the way back in the 90s when CGI offered new cinematic possibilities, but by now audiences have seen enough computer generated wonders not to care about the marvel of "how it's done." A solid story and compelling characters need to back up the spectacle and this film has neither of those things.

Grade: D

Doubt

2008-12-20T11:52:00.002-05:00

There are films of dramatic subtlety and then there are films like Doubt. The metaphors are heavy-handed. When the drama elevates, it's always raining. And canted frames are constant, as if that is the only way the audience can understand that things are not quite right. The adaptation of John Patrick Shanley's Pulitzer prize-winning play, adapted by Shanley himself, remains stagy in its form and his attempts to add visual allure by means of showy technique only distracts from the far stronger source material. I'm sure sitting alone in a dark editing suite, Shanley reasoned his rampant overhead shots were some complex allusion to a divine onlooker, relevant to the film's Catholic school setting, but to the audience in the theater it seems to simply allude to the fact that Shanley was like a kid with a camera while making this film.

What makes the film watchable, and yes, sometimes riveting are the phenomenal performances by its esteemed cast. Meryl Streep stars as Sister Aloysius, the head strong principal of a Catholic grade school in 1963 New York. When it is brought to her attention by the warmly innocent Sister James (Amy Adams) that a young boy was brought to the rectory and seemed strange afterward, she very quickly and adamantly takes to the notion of wrongdoing on behalf of the parish priest, Father Flynn (Phillip Seymour Hoffman). Flynn insists it was a misunderstanding but Siter Aloysius persists in her investigation of his character and in two very memorable scenes confronts the mother of the boy in question (Viola Davis) who gives her a shocking and heartbreaking response. No satisfying evidence is presented by either side of the contest and in the end the battle becomes not a matter of justice but a trial of wills between the congenial and eccentric priest and the rigidly traditional nun nipping at his heals.

Shanley's writing, which is far better than his directing here, can be refreshingly ambiguous and quite tart in its earlier, subtler moments, which are mercifully interspersed with light humor. The verbal cat and mouse between Sister Aloysius and Father Flynn is often engrossing and unexpectedly funny. By film's end, though, Streep and Hoffman are reduced to yelling and screaming (while the thunder rolls on, of course) and all the tension dissipates instead of climaxing. The piece falls too often into such histrionic melodrama that only the most enraptured audience members are likely avoid the feeling of having swallowed a bitter pill.

Grade: B-

SAG Nominees

2008-12-20T11:27:00.003-05:00

This year's SAG nominees have been announced with Doubt leading in nominations. Not a surprise when you consider that most people are calling it this year's "actor's film" with a quartet of phenomenal performances. SAG's big race, Best Ensemble Cast, is unique in that it focuses on the overall caliber of the cast rather than the production they appear in, making for some different choices in acknowledgment of actors rather than producers and directors. For the full list of nominees go here.

Best Original Song: Bouncing Back?

2008-12-19T13:57:00.009-05:00

The "Best Original Song" category at the Academy Awards has been under fire for some time and many have simply accused it of becoming irrelevant in a significantly musical-less modern film age. In past years, some nominees and even some winners have been embarrassingly tuneless. For the past two years, a single musical has racked up the majority of nods (Dreamgirls followed by Enchanted). By the mercy of angels, though, neither film's hideous pop confections took home a trophy. Lest we forget Beyonce's Oscar plea "Listen" (pronounced "Liiiiiiiiiisteeeeeennnnnnnn!!!!!!!!!!). Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova's win last year was a mini-triumph of quality over the power of Disney and gave credit to a little film, Once, that probably should have had more recognition anyway (it was #2 on my top 10 last year).

This year there are no hit musicals (except the ineligible ABBA recycling Mamma Mia!) but there are at least 5 enjoyable songs that range from stunning to just plain catchy. That, of course, is assuming the Academy makes the right choices. Thus far, it seems at least two worthy tunes will make the cut: Peter Gabriel's delightful "Down to Earth" from Wall-E and Bruce Springsteen's haunting "The Wrestler" from the film of the same name. The Jack White penned bombastic Quantum of Solace rocker "Another Way to Die" is also a solid candidate though no sure thing. And if I had my druthers, the category would be filled out with deserving longshots "Little Person" written by composer Jon Brion for Synecdoche, New York and "Jai Ho," the AR Rahman composition to which Danny Boyle staged his mock Bollywood dance routine in Slumdog Millionaire. Both Brion and Rahman deserve composer nods as well but only Rahman is likely to receive one. Brion is one of the greatest film composers working but mysteriously he has never been nominated. His greatest work can be heard on the scores for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Punch-Drunk Love, and others.

The main threats to the awesomeness of this year's category come from a pair of pop stars whose fame may hold a little too much weight: Miley Cyrus and the perennially Oscar hopeful Beyonce. She is one of 7 (Seven?!?!) credited songwriters on the completely mediocre "Once In A Lifetime" from Cadillac Records and Miley shares writing credit with Jeff Steele on "I Though I Lost You" a duet with John Travolta (gulp) from the Disney movie Bolt (double gulp). That, my friends, just may be a sign of the apocalypse, a trifecta of evil no mortal can defeat. Also keep a lookout for veteran Clint Eastwood stealing a nod for the passable title tune from Gran Torino which he penned with singer Jamie Cullum and son Kyle Eastwood. But by no means would another Oscar for the legendary Eastwood crush the soul like one for Miley Cyrus. The thought alone chills me.

Only time will tell. Meanwhile, check these out:

Bruce Springsteen - The Wrestler

Peter Gabriel - Down To Earth

Jon Brion with Deanne Storey - Little Person

AR Rahman, Sukhvinder Singh, Tanvi Shah, & Mahalaxmi Iyer - Jai Ho

Alicia Keys & Jack White - Another Way To Die

The Wrestler

2008-12-19T12:52:00.006-05:00

Following a particularly brutal match involving barbed wire and staple gun, Randy is forced to take a break from wrestling. At first he is terrified, but he grows to see it as a chance to try and get back to the real world. He takes extra shifts at the local grocery store and tries to reconnect with the daughter he abandoned years prior (Evan Rachel Wood). Cassidy, a kindred spirit also feeling the pressure of aging in a young person's field, agrees to see him outside the club. The two wounded souls both struggling to be "real" and rid themselves of their alternate stage named selves (his real name is Robin and hers Pam) form a connection that could possibly save both their lives. The question is whether or not either one can leave the jobs they have outgrown but do not know how to live without. Randy, in particular, seems unable to exist anywhere but inside the ring. He makes it clear that part of him would rather die than not wrestle.

The Wrestler is ultimately an all-American tragedy, raw and unsentimental and yet more strongly felt and pulsing with sincerity than most of the pompous prestige pieces you're likely to see this season. Rourke does not create a purely sympathetic character, but a scarred and damaged one who is frustratingly weak and yet overwhelmingly lovable. He is the best in us and the worst in us and to watch his journey is to grapple with quintessential human nature, particularly for those who happen to be old-fashioned and gentlemanly macho men. Tomei is also riveting in yet another scene stealing role as an earthy and assertive female. The actress, often overlooked and teased for winning an Oscar for a comedy not made by Woody Allen (a rare and admirable feat), is a natural beauty who refuses to succumb to doe-eyed ingenue character types. She fills Cassidy/Pam with as much strength, combustibility, and out and out balls as Rourke does Randy. It's about time people recognized her as the powerful and versatile performer that she have proven herself to be. Evan Rachel Wood is also back in top form after a string of forgettable indie flops and half-hearted attempts at commercial fame. She is brimming with pain and unobnoxious young angst in this film (the kind that made her an instant critic's darling in Thirteen). Put together you have a trio of performances so impassioned and authentic that Aronofsky's artful minimalism as a director pays off in spades. The film, often handheld and always gritty, plays like found footage packed with real emotion and a very real non-Hollywood pay off in the film's final moments. Truly one of the best endings to one of the best films of the year.

Grade: A

The Reader

2008-12-18T17:59:00.004-05:00

The Reader is a film in 3 acts, as are most films. However, this particular feature is distinct in that its 3 acts are clearly marked intervals of narrative that take place in unique setting and eras. In its seductive first act The Reader is an erotic coming of age story. 15 year-old Michael (David Kross) is aided by a stranger on the street (Kate Winslet) one day. He brings her flowers to thank her and the two end up forming a connection that ultimately leads to a sexual relationship. He finds her name is Hannah and she is nearly 20 years his senior. Act two features Michael, 7 years since parting with his older summer fling, attending law school and observing the trial of 6 women guards at Auschwitz. One of them, he is stunned to learn, is Hannah. In its close, the now imprisoned Hannah receives taped book readings from Michael (she loves to be read to) and, in this way, their bond continues.

The film is mostly cerebral rather than gut wrenchingly emotional, but it does offer some fascinatingly complicated scenarios to consider, especially regarding the nature of justic and moral law. The opening flirtation objectively stings of scandal but subjectively seems tender and almost forgivable in its innocence. Hannah is not predatory but lonely and the bond she shares with the much younger Michael does not feel solely sex-based but deeply passionate. Its final notes -- Hannah bathing Michael and not so subtly washing out a milk jug -- call to mind something more maternal despite the couple's charged sexuality. Inappropriately maternal, certainly, but maternal, nonetheless.

The trial, like the seduction, offers questions of allegiance and moral judgment. Hannah has certainly commited unforgivable acts and yet she remains strangely sympathetic. It's a mean trick, but an enlightening one that once again puts traditional senses of right and wrong through the wringer. It's also the arc in which both Kate Winslet and David Kross do their best work. Winslet gives as fabulous a performance as you would expect her to give when supplied with a character this complex. She is so riveting and so real that she makes the whole film feel sharper than it is, more believable too. Kross, a young unknown of only 18 years, is the true lead of the film (if there is one). His Michael grounds the film and steers us through the years (until later when the character is played by an able but less indelible Ralph Fiennes). It's a stunning breakout performance that ranges from young and charming to tortured and emotionally deep. That his name has not come up in a single discussion of potential award nominees speaks to the excessive influence of celebrity.

The first two sections of the film are far more compelling than the unaffecting and unsatisfying finale, which feels like a sullen dead end. A lot of the film, beautifully lit by veteran Roger Deakins, feels too refined and stoic where it needs to be raw and gritty, but the turgid conclusion takes the faux art cake. I'll refrain from spoiling the events of the third act for it holds the most surprises (in all the worst ways). What I will say is that it doesn't offer climax but rather empty tragedy. When it really needs a human moment to bring its heady themes of ethics and traditional justice down to the ground, it simply sinks further into downtrodden melodrama. Everything is miserable and yet their is not a heartstring stirred. Michael's coming to terms with his troubled mistress is made so slow and so ambiguous that their connection, once vibrant, now registers as token plot. There's something vaguely touching about it, but only vaguely. The bottom line is that this is Oscar bait with a capital O.

Thankfully, the film's stronger moments (there are more than a few) and its fabulous performances keep it capably afloat even if they are unable to raise it to the level of something extraordinary. A masterpiece this is not, but I'd still take this flawed think piece over a mediocre popcorn flick any day.

Grade: B

The Black Balloon

2008-12-14T11:36:00.006-05:00

Aussie drama The Black Balloon is a well-meaning but unsuccessful look at the lives of a family dealing with an autistic son. While the parents of the family have learned to deal with their son's needs, younger brother Tommy (Rhys Wakefield), only 15 himself, is still struggling to accept his brother Charlie (Luke Ford) as he is. The story is predictable and saccharine. Tommy inevitable learns to love his brother. Who would have thought? Worse yet, the film reduces autism to a social nuisance getting in the way of Tommy's dating cute girls, with the only autistic behaviors displayed by Charlie having everything to do with feces and genitalia and nothing to do with his unique mind. It's oversimplified and cartoonish, and unfortunately, still ends up being one of the more grounded looks at the disease put on film. It's not much but it is something.

The moments that make this film watchable are not its grandiose moments of melodrama (Tommy hit Charlie!) or its cheap comic antics (Charlie ate a tampon!), but small little human moments between the family. Toni Collette is especially forgivable as the family matriarch who bestows her undivided love and attention upon her sons. She is a warm and likable figure who steers clear of trite sentiment or broad shtick. There's also a lovely performance by Gemma Ward as Jackie, the girl of Tommy's dreams and the first person open to learning about Charlie's disease. Still, having misty romantic moments in the foreground of a story about autism can feel sleazy, and the young actors don't seem able to reconcile the romantic with the tragic. As for Luke Ford, given the notoriously difficult and indulgent task of portraying someone with a developmental disability, he is more or less harmless though obviously overdoing it. The of which plausibility is stretched further when we meet Charlie's school friends, a uniform group that displays none of the spectrum of abilities and eccentricities that makes autism such an elastic diagnosis.

Though it possesses many tender moments and several fine performances, The Black Balloon, is an underwhelming and unimportant feature that seems to think itself enlightening when it is at its most shrill. Credit goes to the cast for keeping this afloat, but absoluting nothing in this piece soars.

Grade: C

Hunger

2008-12-13T16:18:00.005-05:00

Writer/director Steve McQueen's debut feature is a sure to be controversial spell-binder portraying, in very vivid and visceral detail, the IRA hunger strike led by Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender) from within prison walls in 1981. Sands was one of 10 men who died in the strike, which was designed to encourage the British to grant political status for IRA members who performed acts of violence in the name of their cause. The efforts, according to the film, were significantly successful. The British ultimately granted most of the IRA's requests, though they still refused to cave on the issue of political status.

The film opens very ambiguously with unsubstantiated shots of an unidentified figure going about his daily routine, as what seems to be some kind of law enforcement officer. Next we meet a resilient prisoner being forced into his grimy cell, the condition of which is unsettling and grotesque. The film is his momentarily until we ultimately meet the former male character again, and discover him to be a prison guard who brutally "baths" and "grooms" the prisoners. He is abusing an unknown man, the identity of which we will come to learn is Bobby Sands. Sands does not occupy the film's central narrative until more than 30 minutes into its 90 minute run. It is a wholly unconventional device for a film that is essentially a narrow window biopic, but many of McQueen's choices here are deliberately untraditional and artistic in nature. The most blatant of these is a reportedly recording breaking 17.5 minute shot, the longest in cinema. It appears during a confrontation between Sands and a Father Moran (Liam Cunningham) and is essentially a rundown of the talking points for the IRA's strike initiative. It is the only strong dialogue scene in a mostly silent, visually oriented feature. It's sustained wide-take is more suggestive of a theater performance whereas elsewhere McQueen exploits the visual versatility of cinema to express the inexpressible within his characters, stoic men on a mission of dire consequence.

What Hunger says about Sands as a historical figure could be debated, but what's most satisfying about it is its portrayal, not of this historical moment, but of a human condition that is perpetual and always present. The collision of opposite minds, the reduction of intellectual ideals to violent action, and most prominently the degradation of a prisoner by his captor. Sands is a captivating figure, though not neccarily a likable one. In the end, his physical struggle as he nears starvation turns into an act of awing will, but to sympathize with his pain is not the same as sympathizing with his cause, or even agreeing with his methods. It simply cannot be denied that to watch a man die slowly in the name of a belief, no matter who he may be or what he has done, is a terribly uncomfortable and dark experience rife with reflections on human mortality and the value of one's life. It is a powerful and unique story, and would still be, even if told in allegorical fiction.

Detractors and those sensitive to Sands' legacy are likely to take offense to McQueen's nonjudgmental portrait. It seems a preferential choice to open the story in prison, where we see these men as beaten victims suffering for a belief, and are not shown the violence they perpetrated, however motivated, that led them into these lives. The most egregious act of violence, though, is perpetrated outside the prison walls, presumably by an IRA gunman, and it could be argued such a moment offers counterbalance. It is truly the most shocking and unspeakable cinema assassination I can ever recall seeing. It is understood that these men have committed terrible acts, and in his dialogue with Father Moran, Bobby Sands seems to convey as much of himself, but I think what McQueen is driving at beneath all of this violence and torment is not a pro-IRA justification of Sands and his actions, but instead a reverence for human life, so easily dismissed by these prisoners and the guards who abuse them. No one in this world is better than another. They are all vicious and the universality of this viciousness makes it all the more difficult to stand. Sands has long been debated as a political activist or a terrorist, whichever your stance might be. But McQueen suggests that all people can be read in two ways and that no person would much stand up to over-analysis of their character, particularly in such terse circumstances. In that long debate with Father Moran, Bobby Sands suggests that people like Moran need people like him because he makes life real rather than theoretical and philosophical. And in real life, no one is a hero.

Grade: A

DVD of the Week: The Dark Knight

2008-12-13T13:56:00.006-05:00

Chris Nolan's epic crime saga, The Dark Knight, single-handedly raises the comic book film from fun summer pulp to bona fide artistic medium. The film is not just one of the most pulse-racing action flicks of the year, but also a morally grey and sophisticated meditation on the modern "hero." The classic caped crusader, Batman (Christian Bale), does battle with the anarchic and twisted Joker (the late Heath Ledger in the role of his lifetime) and in the process collides with an ungrateful Gotham city, a corrupt police force, the mob, and other very real dilemmas. The film's ultimate act of violence is not a gun fight or an explosion (though there are plenty of those), but instead the crushing of a man's character, District Attorney Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart), who after making a name for himself as a brave crusader within the legal means (a Batman with a face, so to speak), finds his hope and idealism crushed. Batman must not only save Gotham from threats of literal violence, but also from the pain of finding its hope squashed. In this film, being the hero does not mean performing acts of heroism, but simply being what is needed, even when that something is dark and disrespected.

Milk

2008-12-11T13:40:00.007-05:00

Gus Van Sant returns to the mainstream movie making fold following years of avant garde film experiments (Gerry, Elephant, Last Days) of mixed success, to deliver this powerful biopic/personal-political history of famous gay rights activist Harvey Milk. The return is not an act of submission, though, as Milk is far and away Van Sant's best film in years and the furthest thing from his later Hollywood flops (Finding Forrester, that infamous Psycho remake). It is an impassioned mini-masterpiece that charts Milk's journey from a dissatisfied New York attorney to an adamant human rights activist in San Francisco, culminating in his becoming the first openly gay man elected to a major public office, and leading, most tragically, to his brutal assassination.

The film is framed with Milk's own narrative voice, achieved through interspersed footage of Sean Penn as Milk sitting alone and recording a forboding "In Case of My Assassination..." tape. Penn is a thoroughly transformative actor, and has always been, but in this film particularly he is phenomenal to watch, and often so phenomenal that you forget you are watching an actor. The idea may be cliche and over used, but here it is perfectly applicable. Sean Penn is Harvey Milk.

His story begins, interestingly enough, not with any tales of his childhood or early life, but with his first encounter with Scott Smith (James Franco) who agrees to spend the night with Milk and ends up making a life with him. The two then move to San Francisco, open a camera shop (Castro Camera, recreated here in the very same storefront that once housed it), and get involved in local merchant unions to help support gay shops. Eventually, the teamsters take notice, and then local politicians. Soon enough Milk has made himself the face of the evolving neighborhood and earned himself the nickname "The Mayor Of Castro Street."

To combat the police brutality and rampant human rights crimes of the area, Milk decides to run for political office, and after several years of faliure, finally wins a seat on the Board of Supervisors due largely to a new zoning regulation that cuts out the more conservative neighboring community. They, in turn, elect the proudly conservative Dan White (Josh Brolin), who adamantly opposes the policies of change and equal rights Milk brings before the Board.

Dan White, here given a generously humane amount of vulnerability only made deeper by Brolin's subtle performance, would go on to murder Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone, and receive a minimal punishment, getting off on the junk food excuse famously termed the "twinkie defense." The beauty of Milk is that it is not a defeated film, built on tragedy, and sleazily designed to elicit your tears. It is a smart, sensitive, funny, and utterly captivating account of a life and a time in history that concludes, most adirambly, with the sentiment that in spite of tragedy people must always have hope.

Grade: A

Golden Globe Nominations

2008-12-11T11:48:00.004-05:00

I'm always skeptical about the Golden Globe nominations, which tend to incorporate absurd choices, celebrity obsessed nods, and the dreaded "Musical/Comedy" distinction. This year is no different. With ample nods for comedies that have no Oscar hopes at all (only Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky and Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona stand a chance), a gifted nomination to celebu-friend Tom Cruise for a very funny but very limited cameo role, and accolodes for famous people in movies no one has even seen yet (Last Chance Harvey?), the nods look awfully suspect. Interesting to note, The Dark Knight did not ascend beyond the token Ledger nomination, The Reader made more of a showing than most people expected, and Doubt looks to be an actors only nominee with no trophies likely for anyone but Streep. For a full list of nominees go here.

Slumdog Millionaire

2008-12-09T21:04:00.013-05:00

The brilliance of some films can be reduced to a phenomenal narrative or bravura performances by a director, cast, and crew. Other films are simply so radiant and magical that dissecting them feels callous. Such is Slumdog Millionaire, a modern day fairytale from first-class director Danny Boyle whose status as one of the great talents of his generation should be secure by now. And if it's not, then this should do it. Most people know Boyle for helming the drug odyssey Trainspotting and more recently the metaphysical sci-fi epic Sunshine. The most relevant credit for understanding his handle on this film, though, is his work on the little seen Christmas dramedy Millions, which also specialized in melding the miraculous and the unspectacular, and sometimes tragic, lives of spirited adolescent boys.

Slumdog opens with two scenes being intercut: Jamal (Dev Patel) taking the stage for a fated stint on India's version of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" and being berated by its snarky host (Anil Kapoor) and Jamal being strung up and beaten in an interrogation room by a stern police inspector (Irfan Khan). We are informed that he has won 10 million rupees on the show, a feat thought impossible for a boy of his breeding, a "slumdog" with no formal education and a disreputable past. He is suspected of cheating, but Jamal insists he simply knew the answers. His brutal interrogation, and the review of the footage from his "Millionaire" appearance frame his childhood narrative from this point on as Jamal provides the inspector (de facto us) with anecdotal evidence as to why he happened to know all the answers to the questions he was asked, though logic suggests he shouldn't. After a life of poverty and dark violence, Jamal has been brought to providence by a force unknown. This film is brave enough, and joyous enough, to simply call it destiny. Cynicism be damned.

The film is a celebration of life, and of goodness. Jamal is a saintly, wide-eyed presence with the kind of purity of conscience and decency of character no one with a life as hard as his should reasonably possess. He does not want money. He only wants to find his one true love, Latika (Freida Pinto) and rescue her from her own dangerous life. When the two meet down the road and he begs her to leave her wealthy, abusive husband, she asks him "And live on what?" To which he answers earnestly, "Love." The two are pitted against a slew of obstacles yet hurdle romantically toward a happy ending the hardest of hearts could not help anticipating with glee. As children, Jamal and Latika, along with Jamal's tougher, more practical brother Salim, suffer through the loss of their parents and eventually end up under the care of a con man named Maman (Ankur Vikal), who feeds them and houses them but ultimately has dark aims for them all. The journey through the criminal underground continues for the three whose lives part and then intersect multiple times in the zig-zag narrative leading Jamal to his destined big win.

The complex story is kept constantly moving by Boyle, who gifts the film with a combination "lived in" minimalism and glossy surreal eye-candy feel. Some frames are painfully unadorned while others look elegant enough to be torn from a storybook. The streets of the slums feel authentically dismal and hauntingly cruel and yet Anthony Dod Mantle's rich cinematography and Chris Dickens' careful editing still manage create a fuzzy warmth that goes hand in hand with the film's modern day fable feeling. Equally transportive and ephemeral is AR Rahman's phenomenal score, which uses original melodies in conjuction with perfectly suited source materials including snippets from Sri Lankan born hip hop innovator M.I.A. (not the least of which is her suddenly ubiquitous "Paper Planes").

While most films this positively jubilant and life-affirming work to purposefully feel old-fashioned, this one is proudly modern. Rather than a standard plot about the cold dehumanizing effects of media and commerce, we get TV as a piece of the fabric that leads to Jamal's great reward. Modernity is not an ailment, but part of the fabric of a universe which still ultimately boils down to the punishing of evil and greed and the rewarding of goodness and love. It is a timeless message in a story of modern times.

Grade: A

I've Loved You So Long

2008-12-05T16:47:00.005-05:00

Philippe Claudel's Il y a longtemps que je t'aime (I've Loved You So Long) is a solid character drama made only stronger by uniformly sensational performances, especially that of Kristin Scott Thomas. Her Juliette is a woman so emotionally wounded that she doesn't cry. Her pain is rich and complex. It inhabits ever fiber of her being and affects every aspect of her life. She is wounded to the point of being not normal, a social outcast trying to find her way back into the mortal world.

After 15 year in prison, Juliette is coming home to live with her sister Léa (a magnificent Elsa Zylberstein), who has not seen her since her incarceration. At home, Juliette must reconnect with her sister. In the world at large, she must adjust to being a maligned pariah whose past looms over her every waking moment. She herself has not reconciled with it. Not the sentence that condemned her, but the dark act that put her there. It's full revelation and emotional resolution mark the film's strongest dramatic thread.

I've Loved You So Long is a minimalist feature with a realist tempo defined by its casual pace and often non-casual scene transitions. The ebb and flow of Juliette's metamorphoses is not charted surely, but passively. Perhaps this is the wiser, subtler choice. However, it loosens the narrative to the point of being inconsequent. We are not seeing a slow transformation but rather a buoy in the lake being bandied about. Juliette does not grow into consciousness but instead gets jostled into it. The journey is rocky and sad but never easy for the audience to follow in time. The film's closing scene is more of an emotional rollercoaster than all that comes before it. After many moments of confusion and desperate meandering, Juliette is forced by Léa to confront the trauma that's been her subconscious motivator all along. In an instant, the film is sharp and urgent. In its whole, it is baggy and unevenly spectacular.

Grade: B+

Trailers: Benjamin Button

2008-12-05T12:54:00.003-05:00

Combination cinephiles and indie rock abusers prepare for an overdose. The newest TV spot for the highly anticipated Fincher film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button comes to us perfectly edited with a bit of Arcade Fire's epically entrancing "My Body Is A Cage" slipped into the sound mix. Nice one, no?

Indie Spirit Nominations Announced

2008-12-02T20:39:00.003-05:00

The nominations for this year's Independent Spirit Awards, Film Independent's annual celebration of all things indie, have been announced with strong choices all around. I'm especially pleased to see Charlie Kaufman's zig-zag meta-tapestry Synecdoche, New York selected as the second annual recipient of the newly founded Robert Altman award. There's a surprisingly large amount of overlap this year between the indie set and the big show Oscar hopefuls. The gap has slowly been closing with pseudo-indie victors such as last year's Juno, but this year's potential crossovers come with authentic indie grit and audacity for the most part. Spirit nominees Rachel Getting Married, Milk, and The Wrestler are all looking certain to at least be nominated come Oscar time and others such as Frozen River, The Visitor, and the aforementioned Synecdoche all have longshot chances at nods as well. For the full list of nominees go here.

Too Good To Be True

2008-11-29T01:38:00.003-05:00

Whedonesque.com is reporting that the Australian Sun-Herald Times (an obvious international authority in all things cinema) is making the unfounded and emotionally manipulative claim that Joss Whedon not only has a script for a "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" film adaptation ready and waiting but that 20th Century Fox, in the wake of teen girl's gushing about vamp-fest Twilight, is eager to unearth the indubitable Ms. Summers for another go round on the big screen. It has probably been long enough that the cast (read: Sarah Michelle Gellar) would be willing to put aside their egos and return to Sunnydale but the chances of the stars aligning (literally and figuratively) still seem slim. Buffy and her cohorts have been living on in comic book form with a Whedon sanctioned "Season Eight" series. Spin-off focus Angel has also been resurrected in the comic series "After the Fall." Following, the conclusion of the original "Buffy" series, Whedon had pitched another spin-off to then UPN (now CW) that would focus on fan favorites Spike and Faith. When that failed to pan out, he proposed a series of TV films that would focus on supporting characters such as Willow. No filmed follow-up ever emerged. The consensus regarding this emerging news about a film is skeptical to say the least. The hand-drawn Whedon-verse will have to do for the moment.

Trailers: Duplicity

2008-11-29T01:13:00.002-05:00

Julia Roberts and Clive Owen rekindle their Closer chemistry at the forefront of a star-studded cast (also including Tom Wilkinson and Paul Giamatti) in this cool as hell looking thriller with an added romantic twist (a 21st Century Charade maybe?). The film is from writer/director Tony Gilroy whose Michael Clayton was one of the most lauded directorial debuts in recent history, so the creative pedigree is certainly in tact. Look for it in theaters March 20th, 2009.

Yes We Can

2008-11-29T00:50:00.002-05:00

Write to:
ABC, Inc. 500 S. Buena Vista Street Burbank, CA 91521-4551

Email them here:
http://abc.go.com/site/contactus.html?lid=ABCCOMGlobalFooter&lpos=CONTACT

Sign the petition here:
http://www.petitiononline.com/daisies/petition.html

WATCH THE SHOW!

Image Credit: lapastelera @ Live Journal

DVD of the Week: Wall-E

2008-11-19T15:47:00.000-05:00

The crown jewel of the Pixar crown (thus far) has go to be this post-apocalyptic bittersweet comedy about a little flibbertigibbet robot named Wall-E. The droid, one of the last remaining vestiges of Earth, has been left behind to compile and compact trash. So devastating is the future world's clutter that the entire population must flee the planet and head into space. Still plucky, greasy, and sweetly silly Wall-E must navigate the gross terrain. He collects trinkets and things along his way and stores them in his lonely little living space. His favorite thing, it seems, is the movie musical. He waits patiently to experience the phenomenon of "hand holding" as demonstrated to him by none other than Barbra Streisand in his beloved copy of Hello, Dolly.

For those that still consider animation to be a dirty word, there is no doubt this transcends the kiddie demo in scope, scale, and visual grandeur. It is a stunning, sweeping epic that exceeds all expectations and resurrects animation from the tiny tykes graveyard as a viable, alternative style of storytelling. Children are, in fact, not especially courted here. The film is certainly a warm, family-minded adventure, but certain narrative elements, including a sadly forgotten Wall-E scraping and scrounging around a desolate planet in relative silence, make this film feel more like the animated equivalent of Cast Away than any sort of successor to the typical fast-paced Mouse House fun of yesteryear. It is admirably subtle and quiet, the benefit of which is the inevitable welcoming of an expansive outer space lift off that offers the viewer a world greater than Wall-E's little nook. As his journey takes him into the reaches of outer space the film achieves a fresh magic with just the faintest, uncheesy hint of authentic hope for a better humanity.

Let The Right One In

2008-11-16T13:10:00.015-05:00

Though it is already primed for an American remake in 2010, this Swedish coming-of-age horror tale from director Tomas Alfredson needs no revision. Låt den rätte komma in (Let The Right One In) tells the story of 12-year-old outcast Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant) who lives alone with his mother, suffers from the constant harassment of bullies, and collects clippings from the local papers about mysterious murders and other grim deaths. His life becomes suddenly and irreversibly altered when he befriends Eli (Lina Leandersson) one day on the playground. She appears to be a 12-year-old, but in actuality she has been 12-years-old for a very long time. Her nature is perpetually ambiguous (and perhaps androgynous), but her blood lust suggests she shares a commonality with the mythic creatures described colloquially as "vampires."

The odd pair's bond is a delicately depicted comradery between two very broken souls. It begins first as a simple friendship between people with no friends, and no alternatives. But by film's end, it has blossomed into a dangerous prepubescent romance littered with logical complications yet oddly stirring underpinnings. The film is primarily a genre masterpiece that dazzles with its haunting visuals and eerie narrative advances. Beneath the surface, though, it screams out with anguish to be read more deeply as a text on the frailty of human connection and the unusualness of its occurence. Convention is tested to the max as we ponder whether we can really root for a shy 12-year-old to elope with a vampiric creature of unknown age. It's May-December with a gothic twist.

And again, it's still more. Goodness and loyalty are in question and "To whom should one we be loyal?" is a question proposed. Eli is by natural a murderous creature, but she tends to Oskar with a sincerity none of his peers or adult guardians do. Should he then kill for her? Or should he simply kill her? Can she really experience the dark love for him that she suggests through her surface actions? The one thing certain is that this is a film of questions and not of answers. It opens the room to inquisition and then boards a train and heads off to the next station, as does Eli, taking with it all the danger and tummult it first offered to the quaint burg it entered previously, and equally our own minds as audience.

Grade: A

Quantum of Solace

2008-11-15T13:22:00.008-05:00

James Bond's latest adventure, Quantum of Solace, is not a film to enter into groggily. It barrels along at such a routinely breakneck pace that somewhere after the first 30 minutes, which include a car chase of anonymous peril, a rooftop pursuit, a gun fight suspended from a series of pulleys and levers, and a motorcycle hunt turned boat race after said motorcycle is driven off a pier and onto a motorboat, you'll wonder what exactly is going on and consider whether this is not as much a film as a conglomerate of chase scenes. Neat action-oriented exploits have always been a primary function of the 007 franchise, which had its second inaugural installment recently with the reboot Casino Royale, but this new offering ups the action ante to extreme new levels of blankly executed murder and destruction. Quite oppositely, it also tries more than others to offer continuity and emotional causality between installments. Here Bond is still mourning the betrayal and death of Casino Royale flame Vesper Lynd (Eva Green, in pictures only) and chasing after the evil organization that used her against him. The emotional arc for Bond (yes, he has one) is sometimes stirring and decently handled though all his gruelling misadventures on land and at sea offset the braininess of the script with unfettered brutality.

Craig continues to do great work as the stoic central figure of the films. Due to his efforts, Bond has been effectively and convincingly remolded as a handsome brute rather than a smooth talking sexaholic whose debauchery most often bordered on (and sometimes bled into) the category of masculinized camp. Still plucky as ever after all these years is Judi Dench whose matronly rabble rouser, M, makes for one of the most fun and easy to love authority figures around. Credit in this film also goes to Olga Kurylenko for her feisty performance as the atypical and surprisingly asexual Bond beauty, Camille, who despite expectations is actually a female character of some substance and independent motivation (i.e. she wants more than to sleep with James Bond). Mathieu Almaric, who caused a stir in The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, also rises to the task of the token French-ish villain with plans for dastardly world domination (by odd Chinatown-esque means).

Though the ratio of action sequences to plot and drama is most assuredly unbalanced, Quantum of Solace still offers fun and easy entertainment with the faintest, much appreciated spark of authentic characterization. Its cryptic plot can be baffling at times, but what's present works well enough and what's absent can be mostly overlooked for those who simply want to enjoy the wild ride. Solace continues admirably in the style adapted by Casino Royale to help turn this once crap-tacular franchise into something more edgy, modern, and commercially viable.

Grade: B

DVD of the Week: Hellboy II - The Golden Army

2008-11-11T20:35:00.006-05:00

Visionary director Guillermo del Toro, who previously helmed the rightfully fawned over Pan's Labyrinth, returns with another stab at making a viable Hollywood franchise out of his beloved Hellboy, an unconventional superhero not of the same culturally iconic stock as more recently successful film crossovers such as Batman. Hellboy (Ron Perlman), a demon from another dimension that has been taken in by the American military, is a gruff, awkward, and insecure protagonist (he even files off his devil horns to blend in better). His crack team of paranormal investigators is really just a team of misfits, which includes his fiery (literally) fiancé, Liz Sherman (Selma Blair), and aquatic confidant Abe Sapien (Doug Jones). The team, always a government secret, is facing the threat of exposure as the war between the humans and the mystical creatures of older times ignites for the first time in centuries. The misplaced Hellboy must decide if he should defend the humans or join his supernatural brethren in their fight to regain dominance.

The central story, which involves the diabolical efforts of a pale-faced ancient prince (Luke Goss) and his willowy sister (Anna Walton) is an engagingly weird effort to be sure, but narrative is only half the fun of this film (or maybe less than half) as del Toro and his team of visual masterminds (many reunited from their Oscar winning work on Pan's) piece together what has got to be the most stunningly weird and imaginative film to come out of commercial Hollywood in years. Del Toro is a gem of an innovator with the comic sensibilities of a toddler and the visual lyricism of a poet. He blends broad comedy and cheap sight gags with oddly affecting stunts and action sequences that can be as beautiful to behold as they are drenched in kooky excitement. Among his team's most unforgettable creations: a vividly costumed "angel of death" (also Doug Jones) and a plant monster 30 stories tall whose gooey death covers the city in a lovely coat of pollen that falls with the gentle beauty of snowflakes. This is a popcorn spectacle like no other that should be savored for its rare gifts.

Changeling

2008-10-26T11:43:00.001-04:00

Riveting and classic, Changeling, is a well above average mystery, political muckraker, court room procedural, and family drama all in one. It stands proudly beside Clint Eastwood's recent canon of masterpiece material, most notably Million Dollar Baby and Letters from Iwo Jima, albeit shedding some of those film's prestige for what is a solid, though not Best Picture worthy feature.

Angelina Jolie is front and center in this tear duct exercising missing child saga. Her brave, soon to be feminist studies material, Christine Collins, not only defends herself against a pressing 1920s LAPD, but also inspires city wide policy reform. Collins waged a public war against the LAPD when they returned the wrong child to her and insisted it to be her missing son. The distraught mother fought back in the press, telling everyone who would listen that the publicity nervous LAPD were neglecting the search for her child to protect their egos. The result was a traumatic and unlawful stay in a psychiatric hospital enforced on her to keep her silent and away from the press.

John Malkovich and Jeffrey Donovan are the two polar opposite men in Christine's life. Malkovich is the soft-spoken preacher who wants to help her bring down her adversaries and find her real son. Donovan is the tough-talking police officer that berates her for cruelly abandoning her child in his hour of need, a claim she denies in light of the fact that she has not yet been reunited with her actual child. Kudos also go to Amy Ryan, ever tenacious and spellbinding, in a very affecting, game-changing cameo role that puts Christine on the path to annihilating the system that persecuted her.

Where the film suffers (though it should be said, most negligibly) is in its dour, bitterly dark demeanor. The material is bleak to be sure, and it travels down roads far darker than one would imagine based solely on its description. The tone, though, travels from murky and tragic to pitch-black terror so quickly and so often, that at times truly terrible moments feel almost minimal to the viewer's jaded, already twice-too-often pulverized eyes. Jolie gives a commanding, shout to the rafters performance that deserves to be praised. But at times, we find her so often broken into hysterical fits of rage that her devastation registers as typical. Her greatest moments as a character come in her silent moments of victory and in acts of unsulking bravery. Saying "fuck you" to the head doctor of the psych ward comes to mind. In these moments, we can sense her personal triumph and her struggle, however futile.

Entertaining yet challenging, Changeling, works as both high art and popcorn material for those with strong stomachs. It can be moody and grim but it ultimately builds a fire within the audience that demands justice be sought against those who abused the innocent Christine. In its later scenes, that justice comes to pass and the feeling is nothing less than a rush of satisfaction.

Eastwood's work is as visually arresting as ever, casting his lovely leading lady in obscuring, garish shadows that convey the anguish of her circumstance and the ensnaring evil of the system around her. No faults can be leveled at the great director or his star. Screenwriter J. Michael Straczynski also does well by this true story, turning it into a chameleonic tale of outrage that leaps from genre to genre nimbly and with entertaining determination. Shamefully, history did not write him the bravura denouement a fictional script would have so readily reached for. Or maybe, that's just something to make this piece stand out further.

Grade: B+

Synecdoche, New York

2008-10-25T00:41:00.002-04:00

With his directorial debut, Academy Award winning writer Charlie Kaufman unleashes what is bound to be his most divisive piece of cinema yet. Already a part of the pop culture lexicon with a signature style that leads many to describe films in his wake as Kaufman-esque, the first time director has much to prove and much to lose in stepping behind the camera. Long considered one of Hollywood's few true celebrity screenwriters (a household name to many, and a film's reference away to most -- "the guy who wrote Being John Malkovich" is all it would take), Kaufman takes his career even further by transitioning from unique writer into full-fledged cinema auteur whose originality of vision no longer depends on an outside director to come to life.

Maybe it is this reason that leads the dreamy and sometimes maddening Synecdoche, New York to be such a troubled gem. Without a director to filter Kaufman's screwball dialogue and complex metaphorical images, the screen becomes literally engulfed by the mad genius' ideas run wild. This is perhaps Kaufman at his purest, and therefore his craziest yet.

It is safe to say that Synecdoche, New York does not make for an easy, pleasurable viewing experience. No film has ever been less suitable for a lazy Sunday afternoon. However, no film in recent memory may be more deserving of numerous, intense viewings either. Often more satisfying as a thematic vehicle driven by a self-consciousness of film's own devices than anything approaching a coherent and compelling narrative work, Synecdoche flies off the screen and slowly descends the viewer into a false world of art and cinema in which time and space, our essential principles of comfort, cease to exist. Watching the film is an experience for the senses and dismissing it early for its eccentricity or obvious ambitiousness would be a mistake. Nonetheless, I can't say I'd be entirely stunned if many people feel compelled to do so. It's a surreal and vacant pace-setter for a good 30 minutes or so. Only when the film's real drives kick in, does the Kaufman magic really begin. And even then there's so little realistic plot to hold onto that many viewers will be understandably driven to feel they are being led down a meandering path to nowhere.

What clear plot there is goes something like this: Caden Cotard (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) is an ailing, regional theater director living a discontented life with a wife who ignores him (Catherine Keener). When she takes off for Berlin with her mysterious girlfriend Maria (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and the couple's young daughter, Olive (Sadie Goldstein), the terribly lonely and increasingly ill Caden uses his art to fill the void in his life. After winning a mysteriously massive grant that has no apparent financial limitations, he undertakes the transformation of an old warehouse into an interactive performance piece containing hundreds of actors playing roles modeled after real people living real lives. Eventually, he takes a new wife, Claire, (Michelle Williams) and has another daughter. They too become characters in his life-size play. Claire, an actress, plays the part of herself. Meanwhile, a mysterious stranger named Sammy (Tom Noonan), who claims to have been stalking Caden for the past 20 years, is cast as Caden in Caden's play. Not too long after, another actor is cast to play Sammy playing Caden in Caden's play. And not too long after that, a second warehouse is built inside the original warehouse and this warehouse contains another life-size world replica and so on until Caden's mad, never-finished art piece becomes a world within a world within a world. And still he goes unsatisfied. He always craves his next idea for artistic development and bounces vulnerably between women, pursuing a sense of satisfaction that is sometimes present but always nothing more than fleeting. At some point, he even takes on a role within the play, that of Ellen, his first wife's cleaning woman whom we never meet in the real world. As Ellen, he shares a moment of comfort and solace with the actress playing Ellen's mother, but even then, the moment is temporary and leads only to more desires to create and self-sooth with artistic designs that he thinks might finally satisfy him but never will.

And so Synecdoche, New York unfurls. It does not grow to a boil and then settle neatly. It dawdles and shuffles its feet, carrying on in "a day in the life" mode, but this time the meaning of a "day" and exact identity of one's "life" are not clearly defined. Kaufman is fascinated by the ease with which actor's slip into other lives, attempting to create a reality by which to express reality, which already naturally expresses itself. He lets the film be unreal and reflexive, driving the audience to question its celluloid reflection as something not all too different than the world within a world Caden hopes to find peace in. Characters sometimes age but look no older (Williams, for example). Years sometimes pass in what we presume are only hours. Typical film cues for time jumps are suspended and much of the film seeks to stress the artifice of film itself as a storytelling device. One character (Samantha Morton's Hazel) lives in a house that is constantly on fire but yet never devoured by flames. Caden himself is always dying yet not dead.

There is no truth to this fiction. At least not in any rational sense. It is a tome of atmosphere and reflection that utilizes film and all its devices rather than playing by classical Hollywood rules. At times it feels stifled by its own rambling insanity, but in the clutter there is such brilliant, unparalleled imagination that it is hard not to forgive the oddity and embrace it for its unique candor. Synecdoche does not try to fool audience members into believing that what they are seeing portrays real lives with which they should sympathize. It wants you to recognize that it is false and think about what that means for you, sitting in your seat, and watching the unreal, hoping it will feel real, before departing back into reality. In a medium designed to create illusory reality, the film stands apart as an illusion about illusion, which mournfully suggests that art is nothing but one of many pleasures all humanity, equal in each part and together one singular whole, seeks out to quiet the terror it feels on the slow and painful journey toward death.

Grade: A

W.

2008-10-24T01:06:00.008-04:00

Measured to a fault and lacking in cinema magic, Oliver Stone's textbook W. delivers none of the mudslinging panache most viewers might expect. Instead Stone's biopic of the still in office controversial president creates a relatively sedate, modestly sympathetic portrayal of George W. Bush that dramatizes some of the more historic behind closed door moments in the president's life (a war room sequence debating the invasion of Iraq) and carnivalizes certain iconic oddities in the president's history (the famous pretzel incident). The result is an uneven picture that's often entertaining but never as revolutionary in its thinking or telling as you'd like.

Josh Brolin is charismatic and accurate in the title role, assuming enough of the president's mannerisms and vocal intonations to make him instantly recognizable but not a soulless, mirror impersonation. Not every cast member is as successful balancing impersonation with authentic acting, though. Elizabeth Banks, for example, makes no effort to resemble Laura Bush, but gives a very likable and tender performance nonetheless. Thandie Newton makes every effort to look and sound like Condoleezza Rice and in the process loses hold of the character's motivation, allowing only for iffy imitation.

By the time the film establishes pace, the authenticity of each actor matter's less and the quality of the material more. It's a decently stacked script that mixes the farcically comic and the darkly tragic. Each scene, though, seems to have its own contained momentum. When pieced together, they feel somehow stagnant. Nothing seems put together in a way that sheds light or creates a feeling of deeper understanding. Stone's stylistic flourishes, including a bookending baseball fantasy, seem specifically designed to draw connections where connections are thin. Ultimately, the film still feels like a laundry list of scenes and not a complete work of singular power.

The film's conclusion does no favors to what comes before. It's true dramatic climax is nothing but a dream and it leaves the audience not knowing more, but simply wondering why, with all the moments of world importance to stress, Stone chose to make the crux of this story imaginary. There's also a hole where the ending should be. As Bush's story continues to unfold in the public eye, there's no real end to be had in this fictional account. The send off is minor and unsatisfying, a further note of incongruity in a feature that feels well-made yet somehow vacant where its passion should be.

Grade: B-

Happy Go Lucky

2008-10-19T16:43:00.006-04:00

Writer/director Mike Leigh is a talent best known for realistic, intimate dramas of a mostly heartrending nature (Vera Drake, Secrets & Lies), but with the winning and non-tragic Happy Go Lucky he proves that positivity need not be less interesting. To call Happy Go Lucky a comedy would overstate its lighter charms and understate it subtlety of craft. It is not built around punchlines or slapstick and more often than not does not openly fish for audience laughter. Its comic nature, if it should be called that, stems from the effortless warmth of its story and characters.

Primary school teacher Poppy (a compulsively watchable Sally Hawkins) purposefully bucks the modern trend of doom and gloom. She goes about her humble life with laughter and reassurance, trying always to see a silver lining and put a smile on the face of a stranger or two. At the very start of the film her bike is stolen, and her response is not outrage or anger but instead sheer disappointment. "I didn't even get to say goodbye," she says aloud to herself. The result is that Poppy learns to drive, a decision that sets up the principal dilemma of the film (if there is one in this free-flowing gem). Poppy's driving instructor, Scott (Eddie Marsan), is Poppy's polar opposite. He sees ruin and conspiracy at every turn and very easily grows to a rageful boil at the slightest hint of conflict. Poppy's sessions in the car with him turn into a negotiation between the rational, clear-minded free spirit and the loose-cannon instructor. He wants her to wear flat shoes, "appropriate footwear" he calls it. She thinks she looks cute in her high heel boots and doesn't want to make the switch. With every maneuver she finds a bit of whimsy and humor and he conversely squashes it with his joyless frustration.

The climax of the film is rightfully ambiguous and much more intense than something so cheerful seems to have the right to be. It's a credit to the feature that Poppy is both abnormally joyful and realistically grounded and self-doubting. When she makes a turn down a dark corner early in the film to see to a disoriented, potentially mentally ill homeless man, she wonders aloud at one point "What am I doing here?" She makes every effort but she is no flutter brain. Her decision to be good is truly self-less and not a natural condition as has been typical of a certain number of carefree pixies who turn up in indie cinema as mentor's to dour male protagonists. Poppy takes the film all to herself, navigating with great sensitivity and intellect, the modern world in all its complexity. She is a fascinating, playful narrator and a unique pair of eyes. Even the simplest things such as a chiropractor appointment become fodder for her to spread cheer and tickle the audience with her unique and very sympathetic charm.

Grade: A

Rachel Getting Married

2008-10-10T01:58:00.015-04:00

To say that Rachel Getting Married is Jonathan Demme's best film in years isn't really saying much at all. What's worth something, is the assertion that it truly is one of the most vibrant and intoxicatingly alive films of the year thus far. Following a phenomenal stretch in the 90s, which included Silence of the Lambs and Philadelphia, the acclaimed Demme fell victim to poor career choices, stumbling most notably on a recent back-to-back pair of asinine remakes: a modernization of the classic John Frankenheimer political thriller The Manchurian Candidate and The Truth About Charlie, a reworking of the well-liked Charade with Mark Wahlberg in the Cary Grant role. Seriously. Following the downward spiral, Demme rebounded with several acclaimed documentary works (Neil Young: Heart of Gold, Jimmy Carter A Man from the Plains). It's no surprise then that Rachel Getting Married bears a closer resemblance to documentary style than Demme's classical Hollywood past. The photography is all grain and shaky cam with gently lit, natural frames. At times the film feels more like culled footage from a particularly moving wedding video than a narrative work, which is as much a compliment to the performers' subtle acting and Jenny Lumet's emotionally honest script as it is to Demme's very unglamorious shooting style.

The central premise of the movie is simple enough: Rachel (a radiant Rosemarie DeWitt) is getting married and has invited her delinquent post-rehab little sister Kym (Anne Hathaway) for the wedding. Her reassimilation into the family and ongoing personal journey toward recovery make for the film's core drama. Meanwhile, in the background, the wedding plans continually roll along. Often the most dramatic moments are the most simply structured. A toasting scene that goes one by one around a long dinner table to nearly every major character (and then some) should be dull but each actor brings such believable charm and complexity that every speech is a miniature revelation. Not the least of which is Hathaway's bravura turn at the mike in which she puts the audience at disease, then charms with dark wit, and ultimately sandbags with saving grace gravitas. It's the first truly dynamite scene for her in a film full of many. The most explosive of these occurs late in the film when a torn up Kym confronts her detached mother (Debra Winger, superb in a small role) about her dark past and a physical altercation results. Thankfully, the film has as many simple charms as it does dramatic overtures. Watching Kym and Rachel's father, Paul (a beautifully human Bill Irwin) fuss over his daughters with loving devotion is a reward in its own right. So too is the budding romance between Kym and wedding attendee Kieran (a Clooney-ish charming Mather Zickel). That Kym can find time to both brood and flirt in a single film put her ahead of many other one-note indie heroines capable of only one function per film. The final wedding scene, boiled down to mostly a montage of what looked to be quite a party, also has a simple, unaffected resonance. It is as exciting as any third act spectacle but substitutes dire melodrama or epic misadventure for a simple, satisfying human celebration.

The film is not perfect, but I don't think it aspires to be. In the spaces between the tearful moments of joy and sorrow there exist several meandering downbeats. But when the goal is for art to mimic life without censorship, how can their never be moments you wish to take back? The film unfurls delicately and in the end there isn't really any completeness of closure. A feeling of improvement is undeniable but certain issues still hang in the air, dampening DeWitt's beautifully quiet send off. Rachel is sure to have an upcoming baby shower, and then maybe an anniversary party. These same elements will gather again and continue to gather, colliding in both comic and heartrending ways on and on throughout these characters' lives.

Grade: A-

Choke

2008-10-04T09:42:00.011-04:00

In the pitch-black comedy Choke, Sam Rockwell stars as Victor Mancini, a sex addict with an ailing mother who gets by on the generosity of strangers who "save" him from asphyxiation. What his marks don't know is that Victor purposefully lodges food into his own throat and then scams them into feeling a sense of heroism and affection by letting them save his life. The dark choke joke runs throughout the film and experiences several different incarnations, ultimately culminating in a childhood revelation that helps click into place much of Victor's warped psychology.

Writer/director/actor Clark Gregg adapted the story from Chuck Palahniuk's novel of the same name. The result is a sweet and sour mix of comic and dramatic elements that occassionally grates but most typically flows along smoothly and entertainingly. Victor even encounters the challenge of a potentially serious romantic relationship with his mother's doctor, Page (Kelly McDonald), but ultimately finds himself desperate for less savory sexual activity with more complicated, meaningless females. The result is a hilarious film-stealing "fake rape" orchestrated by an internet pickup played marvelously by Heather Burns. At the same time though, Victor's mother (Anjelica Huston both in the present and in flashbacks) is slowly dying and stricken with debilitating dementia. And so we travel from sex farce to family melodrama. It's to the film's credit that the transition hardly ever feels strained. Somehow both the dark comedy of Victor's outside life and the melancholy sadness felt within his mother's hospital both go hand in hand.

If there's a flaw to this playfully obscene and dark-hearted dramedy, it's that when the credits roll, you're left trying to keep the fragments of story alive in your head. It's a film so slight and simple in its charms (however elaborately dark and strange the comic structure may be) that you don't want to forget it, but you just might. Nonetheless, there is certainly a satisfying movie experience to be had watching this little gem. It's twisted, funny, and occasionally so grimly tragic that you hope and wait for the funny to return.

Grade: B

R.I.P.

2008-09-27T17:07:00.003-04:00

Beloved screen actor Paul Newman has passed away at the age of 83. The actor leaves behind a treasured filmography that includes classics such as The Hustler, Hud, Cool Hand Luke, and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. During his career he earned a total of 9 Oscar nominations, including a win for The Color of Money. His final big screen performance was in 2002's Road to Perdition, directed by Sam Mendes and co-starring Tom Hanks and Jude Law. He had since appeared on television in the HBO mini-series "Empire Falls," for which he earned an Emmy award, and most recently voiced a talking car in the Pixar hit Cars.

Just Because He Can

2008-09-26T17:08:00.002-04:00

Perhaps it's time to forgive Roger Ebert for his "thumps up" review of both Garfield: The Movie and its sequel Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties. Often criticized, occasionally accosted (What did ever happen to Vincent Gallo?), but always a perennially relevant film source, Ebert has gotten even more proudly uncompromising later in life. The ailing critic (still recovering from emergency treatment for salivary gland cancer) recently summoned the nerve to tell off the all powerful Disney Co. after a contract dispute, ending in the banning of his trademark phrases "thumps up" and "thumbs down" from all broadcasts of the syndicated At the Movies (a reformated version of what was once Ebert & Roeper nee Siskel & Ebert). Now he's simply taken to mocking the hell out of low IQ ingrates on his "Movie Answer Man" column found at RoberEbert.com. Here he tells off a slang-crazed super fan of the grand debacle Disaster Movie in cryptic internet abbreviations as incomprehensible as those used in the inquiry. Perhaps if he was an ordinary man, just another blogger or another column writer, it would seem tacky and probably not all that funny. But he's Roger Ebert. And that makes this hilarious.

Q: Yo dude, u missed out on “Disaster Movie,” a hardcore laugh-ur-@zz-off movie! Y U not review this movie!? It was funny as #ell! Prolly the funniest movie of the summer! U never review these, wat up wit dat?

A: Hey, bro, I wuz buzier than $#i+, @d they never shoed it b4 hand. I peeped in the IMDb and saw it zoomed to #1 as the low$ie$t flic of all time, wit @ lame-@zz UZer Rating of 1.3. U liked it? Wat up wit dat?

Roger Ebert's greatest piece of writing? I think so.

I Just Don't Think I Can Do It

2008-09-26T16:41:00.003-04:00

I try to make a habit of seeing as many new release films as possible, partiularly those that a) have pop culture resonance or b) seem poised to receive major accolades. The reason being that these are the films that will likely come into conversation (actual or digital) in the next 6-8 months. They are also the ones you're expected to have a constructed opinion about. And I do not tolerate echoing general critical consensus in lieu of real opinion making. Criticizing films sight unseen is slander. I sat through Gigli purely so that when I mocked it viciously, it came from a place of truth. Simply going along with the negative flow would have been dishonest. So when faced with a film suchs as Saul Dibb's The Duchess, a feature whose every fiber seems to contradict any and all things which appeal to me - honesty, temerity, unpretentious raw smarts - I have nowhere to turn. Despite galvinizing critics, the film has a real awards future. Nominations in fields such as costuming and art direction seem to be a lock. And depending on the intensity of emerging competition, stars Keira Knightley and Ralph Fiennes just may be on an awards shortlist, if not the actually nomination ballot. When the Oscars role around, the cynic in me would love to inform anyone who asks about how the slow, sullen film is unworthy of all prizes. But of course, to do that I'd have to see it. And to see it, just might deaden my soul.

What's He Got To Lose?

2008-09-21T00:59:00.002-04:00

M. Night Shyamalan made 3 films I love (The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs) and three films whose combined runtimes equal 6 hours of my life I'll never get back again (The Village, Lady In The Water, The Vanishing). To have produced the former 3 features, there must be talent in the man. I confess the latter 3 are true stinkers. Hell, lately he couldn't even make an appealing American Express commercial (Remember Wes Anderson's masterfully clever busy on-set ad? Well Night tried a gloomy surreal take that aired far less and to no one's delight). Regardless, word from the man himself that the proposed but long dismissed sequel to Unbreakable may finally come to be can't help but make me excited. The chance he might make a good film again (a continually waning fact of life, I might add) now seems just a little bit less hopeless. Night spoke to MTV's Splashpage recently about how the film's iffy critical and commercial reception convinced him to put off what was expected to be a trilogy of films based on the comic book-esque tale of a man who discovers that he possesses superhuman abilities. Also encourraging? Stars Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson are reportedly game. The bad news? The film's rights still remain with Disney, the distributor of Night's first 5 thrillers. He recently jettisoned to 20th Century Fox, complicating the relationship with Disney to say the least. Either way, nothing could suck more than The Happening, right? Right?

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